"Ultrasonic Bonding for thermoplastic microfluidics, nanofluidics and MEMS"

该项目将支持低成本热塑性微流体制造工艺的开发和应用，以加速从基础聚合物研究到基因组学应用等领域的研究。 热塑性塑料是用于微流体系统的最广泛使用的材料之一，因为它们可以使用各种技术制造，包括热压印、微注射成型和直接光刻。 例如，聚甲基丙烯酸甲酯（PMMA）既是商用丙烯酸树脂（Plexiglas®，OPTIX®）的主要成分，也是最广泛使用的纳米纤维电子束抗蚀剂材料之一，能够定义所有传统自上而下纳米技术工艺中最精细结构的材料。 因此，PMMA和其他热塑性塑料非常适合大规模的纳米和微米结构，这些聚合物的主要应用之一是微流体领域。 微流体技术在微米和纳米尺度上操纵流体流动，并且可以通过使用更小的试剂量和利用正比例定律（例如增加的表面积与体积比）来加速化学反应，从而帮助各种化学反应和生物诊断。主要研究者和其他人最近的工艺开发表明，相对便宜的商业丙烯酸树脂可以用深紫外光进行微米和纳米结构化，并提供独特的能力，如垂直锥形通道，跨通道的定制疏水性/亲水性和改变分子量，以降低表面的玻璃化转变温度，同时保持本体不变。 所有这些创新都可以用于制造廉价的微流体，与传统的玻璃基技术相比，这些微流体的生产成本更低，设备尺寸和功能更灵活。 然而，目前缺少的是用于这些热塑性微流体装置的快速、方便和可靠的结合方法，该方法与我们现有的制造能力相匹配。 超声波热塑性焊接解决方案将大大增加我们的研究成果，并减少制造时间，以便更多的精力可以用于设计和测试微流体系统。

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.