Rapid Prototyping of 3D Nanofluidic Systems in Glass Substrates

描述(由申请人提供)：我们最近开发了一种使用飞秒脉冲激光在硬材料中进行纳米机械加工的方法(Joglekar等人，2003,2004)，我们最近将其扩展到在玻璃基板上快速生产三维(3D)亚表面纳米流体和微流体网络。这项提议的总体目标是应用这种独特的能力来制造极高密度和增强功能的微流体和纳米流体设备，用于生物医学诊断和生化分析。据我们所知，这是第一次将精度在10纳米量级的三维复杂性用于玻璃微流体。我们推测，在医学诊断、纯化、测序和蛋白质组分析中，可能会制造出各种新的生物分析和药物输送系统。R21提案的总体目标是积极探索这种纳米加工技术的局限性，有条不紊地探索以这种方式构建的纳米通道中生物分子的运输，并开发至少一个具有令人信服的表征数据的高度集成的系统。拟议的研究计划是独一无二的，潜在的影响非常大，因为它使全新的微流体和纳米流体设备不再局限于二维几何结构或多层聚合物材料。具体目标是：1：确定微米和纳米流体应用的三维飞秒加工的物理和实际极限；2：彻底探索三维飞秒激光加工微米和纳米通道中的流动和传输；3：利用三维纳米机械加工快速制作高密度流动控制元件和集成分析设备的原型。这一目标的总体目标是创建一个令人信服的演示，展示玻璃衬底中可用于微阵列、微分离或微药物输送系统的微流体流动控制工具箱的使用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We recently developed a method for nanomachining in hard materials using a femtosecond pulsed laser (Joglekar et al., 2003, 2004), which we have recently extended to the rapid production of three-dimensional (3D) subsurface nanofluidic and microfluidic networks in glass substrates. The overall aim of this proposal is to apply this unique capability to fabricate extremely high density and increased functionality micro- and nanofluidic devices for biomedical diagnostics and biochemical analysis. To our knowledge, this is the first time that three-dimensional complexity, with precision on the order of ten nanometers, has been available for glass microfluidics. We hypothesize that a variety of novel bioanalysis and drug-delivery systems may be fabricated for applications in medical diagnostics, purification, sequencing, and proteomic analysis. The overall aim of this R21 proposal is to aggressively explore the limits of this nanomachining technique, methodically explore transport of biomolecules within nanochannels constructed in this manner, and develop at least one highly integrated system with compelling characterization data. The proposed plan of research is unique and potentially of very high impact in that it enables entirely new classes of micro- and nanofluidic devices that are no longer limited to either two-dimensional geometries or multiple layers of polymer materials. Specific Aims are 1: Determine the physical and practical limits of 3-D femtosecond machining for micro- and nanofluidics applications 2: Thoroughly explore flow and transport in 3D femtosecond laser-machined micro- and nanochannels 3: Employ 3D nanomachining to rapidly prototype high-density flow control components and integrated analysis devices. The overall goal of this aim is to create a compelling demonstration of the use of a flow- control toolbox for microfluidics in glass substrates that could be used for microarray, microseparations, or micro-drug delivery systems.