The ability to use chalcogenide glass thin films as photoresists for one-step maskless grayscale lithographic patterning is demonstrated. It is shown that the chalcogenide photoresists can be used to fabricate grayscale patterns with smooth and continuous profiles such as arrays of cylindrical and spherical microlenses, which are useful as optical structures for IR applications. The etching and exposure parameters are optimized to obtain smooth reproducible lens arrays of 150 μm periodicity and up to ∼170 nm height on large areas (∼1 cm(2)). The roughness is found to increase as a function of the exposure dose and is attributed to the selective dissolution of the As-Se, As-As, and Se-Se bonds present in the nanodistributed phases and the presence of the oxide phase. Thus, a minimum exposure dose produces optimally patterned lens arrays. The focal length calculated for the smooth microlens array is ∼9.3 mm, indicating the suitability of the lens arrays for focusing applications in the IR region.
We have developed PEGylated mesoporous carbon nanocapsule as a universal nanoreactor and carrier for the delivery of highly crystalline hydrophobic/hydrophilic nanoparticles (NPs) which shows superior biocompatibility, dispersion in body fluids, good biodistribution and NPs independent cellular uptake mechanism. The hydrophobic/hydrophilic NPs without surface modification were synthesized in situ inside the cavities of mesoporous carbon capsules (200-850 nm). Stable and inert nature of carbon capsules in a wide range of reaction conditions like high temperature and harsh solvents, make it suitable for being used as nano/microreactors for the syntheses of a variety of NPs for bioimaging applications, such as NaYF4:Eu(3+)(5%), LaVO4:Eu(3+)(10%), GdVO4:Eu(3+)(10%), Y2O3:Eu(3+)(5%), GdF3:Tb(3+)(10%), Mo, Pt, Pd, Au, and Ag. Multiple types of NPs (Y2O3:Eu(3+)(5%) (hydrophobic) and GdF3:Tb(3+)(10%) (hydrophilic)) were coloaded inside the carbon capsules to create a multimodal agent for magneto-fluorescence imaging. Our in vivo study clearly suggests that carbon capsules have biodistribution in many organs including liver, heart, spleen, lungs, blood pool, and muscles.
Micro-mixing is an important research area for various applications in sensing and diagnostics. In this paper, we present a performance comparison of several different passive micromixer designs based on the idea of staggered herringbone mixers (SHM). The working principle in such designs includes the formation of centers of flow rotation thus leading to multiple laminations with decreasing sizes of the lamellae as the flow passes over staggered structures. We have realized different layout designs of staggered herringbones inside micro-channels and compared their mixing performance. An overall reduction in mixing time and length has been observed as the degree of asymmetry within these structures is increased. The layouts of these staggered structures are based on herringbone bilayers wherein these layers are positioned on the top and bottom walls of a micro-channel. Fluorescence microscopy and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based modeling have been used to observe the extent of mixing and understand the reasons behind the enhanced mixing effects. We have further varied the degree of asymmetry of the herringbone bilayers and investigated mixing as a function of the asymmetry. We have developed a novel microfabrication strategy to realize these micro-devices using an inexpensive non-photolithographic technique which we call micro-replication by double inversion (MRDI). The paper basically attempts to develop an overall understanding of the mixing process by letting two fluids flow pass over a variety of asymmetric structures.Keywords Micromixer Á Micromixing Á Staggered herringbones Á Microfabrication Á Micro-replication by double inversion (MRDI) Á Bilayer Á Asymmetry
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