Fabrication of fluidic devices with 30 nm nanochannels by direct imprinting

Abstract

Fabrication of a seamless roll mold by direct writing with an electron beam on a rotating cylindrical substrate Fabrication of 100 nm metal lines on flexible plastic substrate using ultraviolet curing nanoimprint lithographyIn this work, we propose an innovative approach to the fabrication of a complete micro/nano fluidic system, based on direct nanoimprint lithography. The fabricated device consists of nanochannels connected to U-shaped microchannels by triangular tapered inlets, and has four large reservoirs for liquid input. A master silicon stamp with the multilevel structures is fabricated first, and then a negative replica is made, to be used as a stamp for ultraviolet nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL). Afterwards, just one single UV-NIL step is necessary for patterning all the the micro and nanostructures. Furthermore, the devices are made of all-transparent materials, and the method allows flexibility for the type of substrates used. The active material (an inorganic-organic hybrid polymer) used for the fabrication of the device has been carefully chosen, so it has adequate surface properties (inert and hydrophilic) for its direct use for biological applications. Devices having 30 nm wide, 30 nm deep nanochannels have been fabricated, and the successful performance of the fluidic system and the continuity of the nanochannels have been proven by flow tests.

Effects of Micromachining Processes on Electro-Osmotic Flow Mobility of Glass Surfaces

“…In particular, nano fluidic devices that contain nano channels can be used for separation and filtration [21], single-molecule detection [22][23][24][25][26], highly efficient PCR [27], chemical analysis [28,29] and nano-photonic sensors [30], with great help of development of nanofabrication technologies [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. As the channels are reduced in size, the surface roughness and surface chemistry become dominant in determining the dynamics of flow.…”

Nanostructure and Microstructure Fabrication: From Desired Properties to Suitable Processes

“…To increase the throughput of NIL, the use of a rolling pin‐like mold was suggested in 2008, in which a flexible oblong substrate is guided over a rotating cylindrical mold. NIL has been used to make soft molds or stamps, high aspect ratio parallel lines on a substrate, nanopillars, and microfluidic devices . A silica mold with 10 nm wide pillars, separated by 40 nm spacing, was fabricated to imprint a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layer ( Figure ), resulting in similar sized holes .…”

Bio-inspired 3D funnel structures made by grayscale electron-beam patterning and selective topography equilibration

“…This mainly involves electron beam grayscale lithography and thermoplastic polymer reflow. The new contribution of this work is the realization of ultra-smooth heightgradients in two directions in difference to other work on tapered structures with a height-gradient only in one direction [8,9].…”