Alignment System and Application for a Micro/Nanofluidic Chip

Abstract

In this paper, a direct pre-bonding technology after alignment of the chip is presented to avoid the post-misalignment problem caused by the transferring process from an alignment platform to a heating oven. An alignment system with a high integration level including a microscope device, a vacuum device, and an alignment device is investigated. To align the chip, a method of ‘fixing a chip with microchannels and moving a chip with nanochannels’ is adopted based on the alignment system. With the alignment system and the assembly method, the micro/nanofluidic chip was manufactured with little time and low cost. Furthermore, to verify the performance of the chip and then confirm the practicability of the device, an ion enrichment experiment is carried out. The results demonstrate that the concentration of fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) reaches an enrichment value of around 5 μM and the highest enrichment factor is about 500-fold. Compared with other devices, an alignment system presented in this paper has the advantages of direct pre-bonding and high integration level.

Automatic alignment system device of micro–nanofluid control chip and its application

“…Table 1 exhibits the index parameters of several alignment equipments. Compared with the typical equipment in (Wang and Han, 2018; Fuentes and Woolley, 2008; Zong et al , 2005), this system includes two precision adjusters, which can make the adjustment range of the alignment accuracy of the chip larger. The accuracy of all equipment reaches micrometers.…”

“…In this paper, the calibration accuracy is improved to meet the requirements of nanostructure alignment. In addition, the positioning method of Wang and Han (2018) and Fuentes and Woolley (2008) is manual positioning. The positioning process is slow and the positioning accuracy cannot be guaranteed.…”

“…The detection and analysis results of the chip are easily affected via the alignment process of the chip (Lee et al , 2018; Huang and Han, 2015; Abad and Juarros, 2011). By adjusting the coordinate position and angle of 3D moving platform and inverted fluorescence microscope system, the chip is aligned (Wang and Han, 2018). However, manual operation is required during the alignment process.…”

Precision enhanced alignment bonding technique with sacrificial strategy

“…Another approach is based on attaching PDMS to the attachment of the microscope objective, which can achieve accurate and reliable alignment ( Sivakumarasamy et al, 2014 ; Punniyakoti et al, 2017 ). And an alignment system to avoid the post-misalignment problem caused by the transferring process is investigated ( Wang et al, 2018 ). In most cases, mechanical aligners usually affect the bonding strength of the chip due to the long operation time between the plasma treatment and final bonding.…”