"Ultrasonic Bonding for thermoplastic microfluidics, nanofluidics and MEMS"

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This project will support the development and applications of low-cost thermoplastic microfluidic fabrication processes to accelerate research in areas ranging from fundamental polymer research, to genomics applications. Thermoplastics are one of the most widely used materials for microfluidic systems as they can be fabricated using a variety of techniques including hot-embossing, microinjection molding, and direct photolithography. For example, polymethymethacrylate (PMMA) is both the main component of commercial acrylics (Plexiglas®, OPTIX®) but is also one of the most widely used nanofabrication electron-beam resist materials, capable of defining the most finely structured materials of all traditional top-down nanotechnology processes. As such, PMMA and other thermoplastics are well suited for large-scale nano and microstructuring and one of the main applications for these polymers is the field of microfluidics. Microfluidics manipulates fluid flows on the micro and nanoscale, and can help a wide variety of chemical reactions and biological diagnostics by using smaller reagent amounts, and leveraging positive scaling laws, such as increased surface area to volume ratios, to speed up chemical reactions. Recent process developments by the primary investigator and others have demonstrated that relatively inexpensive commercial acrylics can be micro and nanostructured with deep ultraviolet light, and provides unique capabilities such as vertically tapered channels, tailored hydrophobicity/hydrophillicity across channels and altered molecular weight to reduce the glass transition temperature of the surface while keeping the bulk unaltered. All of these innovations can be put to use in making inexpensive microfluidics that are both cheaper to produce and more flexible in device sizes and capabilities than traditional glass based technologies. What is presently missing however is a fast, convenient, and reliable bonding method for these thermoplastic microfluidic devices that match our existing fabrication capabilities. An ultrasonic thermoplastic welding solution will massively increase our research output and reduce fabrication time so that more effort can be devoted to designing and testing microfluidic systems.