In this article we introduce a novel polymer platform based on off-stoichiometry thiol-enes (OSTEs), aiming to bridge the gap between research prototyping and commercial production of microfluidic devices. The polymers are based on the versatile UV-curable thiol-ene chemistry but takes advantage of off-stoichiometry ratios to enable important features for a prototyping system, such as one-step surface modifications, tuneable mechanical properties and leakage free sealing through direct UV-bonding. The platform exhibits many similarities with PDMS, such as rapid prototyping and uncomplicated processing but can at the same time mirror the mechanical and chemical properties of both PDMS as well as commercial grade thermoplastics. The OSTE-prepolymer can be cast using standard SU-8 on silicon masters and a table-top UV-lamp, the surface modifications are precisely grafted using a stencil mask and the bonding requires only a single UV-exposure. To illustrate the potential of the material we demonstrate key concepts important in microfluidic chip fabrication such as patterned surface modifications for hydrophobic stops, pneumatic valves using UV-lamination of stiff and rubbery materials as well as micromachining of chip-to-world connectors in the OSTE-materials.

We present the design, fabrication, and characterisation of an array of optical slot-waveguide ring resonator sensors, integrated with microfluidic sample handling in a compact cartridge, for multiplexed real-time label-free biosensing. Multiplexing not only enables high throughput, but also provides reference channels for drift compensation and control experiments. Our use of alignment tolerant surface gratings to couple light into the optical chip enables quick replacement of cartridges in the read-out instrument. Furthermore, our novel use of a dual surface-energy adhesive film to bond a hard plastic shell directly to the PDMS microfluidic network allows for fast and leak-tight assembly of compact cartridges with tightly spaced fluidic interconnects. The high sensitivity of the slot-waveguide resonators, combined with on-chip referencing and physical modelling, yields a volume refractive index detection limit of 5 x 10(-6) refractive index units (RIUs) and a surface mass density detection limit of 0.9 pg mm(-2), to our knowledge the best reported values for integrated planar ring resonators.

QC 20100715

Thermal boundary resistance (TBR) between a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) and matrices of solid and liquid argon was investigated by performing classical molecular dynamics simulations. Thermal boundary conductance (TBC), i.e. inverse of TBR, was quantified for a range of nanotube lengths by applying a pico-second heat pulse to the SWNT and observing the relaxation. The SWNT-length effect on the TBC was confirmed to be absent for SWNT lengths from 20 to 500Å. The heat transfer mechanism was studied in detail and phonon spectrum analysis provided evidence that the resonant coupling between the low frequency modes of the SWNT and the argon matrix is present both in solid and liquid argon cases. The heat transfer mechanism was qualitatively analyzed by calculating the spectral temperature of the SWNT in different frequency regimes. It was found that the low frequency modes that are resonantly coupled to the argon matrix relaxes roughly ten times faster than the overall TBC time-scale, depending on the surrounding matrix. However, such resonant coupling was found to transfer little energy despite a popular picture of the linear transfer path. The analysis suggests that intra nanotube energy transfer from high frequency modes to low frequency ones is slower than the interfacial heat transfer to the argon matrix.

We present a facile two-stage UV/UV activation method for the polymerization of off-stoichiometry thiol-eneepoxy, OSTE1, networks. We show that the handling and processing of these epoxy-based resins is made easier by introducing a material with a controlled curing technique based on two steps, where the first step offers excellent processing capabilities, and the second step yields a polymer with suitable endproperties. We investigate the sequential thiol-ene and thiolepoxy reactions during these steps by studying the mechanical properties, functional group conversion, water absorption, hydrolytic stability, and thermal stability in several different thiol-ene-epoxy formulations. Finally, we conclude that the curing stages can be separated for up to 24 h, which is promising for the usefulness of this technique in industrial applications. INTRODUCTIONThe huge impact of thermoset polymers in applications ranging from biological implants to airplane building materials stems from the ability to precisely control their curing behavior while simultaneously allowing for tuned final properties. Epoxy resins belong to a particular versatile family of polymers that are widely used in industrial applications exhibiting good mechanical end-use properties, excellent bonding to a variety of substrates, and good chemical resistance. Considerable effort has been devoted to develop a plethora of different epoxies with end-properties optimized for many different applications.

In this article, we present OSTE+RIM, a novel reaction injection molding (RIM) process that combines the merits of off-stoichiometric thiol–ene epoxy (OSTE+) thermosetting polymers with the fabrication of high quality microstructured parts. The process relies on the dual polymerization reactions of OSTE+ polymers, where the first curing step is used in OSTE+RIM for molding intermediately polymerized parts with well-defined shapes and reactive surface chemistries. In the facile back-end processing, the replicated parts are directly and covalently bonded and become fully polymerized using the second curing step, generating complete microfluidic devices. To achieve unprecedented rapid processing, high replication fidelity and low residual stress, OSTE+RIM uniquely incorporates temperature stabilization and shrinkage compensation of the OSTE+ polymerization during molding. Two different OSTE+ formulations were characterized and used for the OSTE+RIM fabrication of optically transparent, warp-free and natively hydrophilic microscopy glass slide format microfluidic demonstrator devices, featuring a storage modulus of 2.3 GPa and tolerating pressures of at least 4 bars.