Surface micromachined PDMS microfluidic devices fabricated using a sacrificial photoresist

PDMS is a widely used material for construction of microfluidic devices. The traditional PDMS microfabrication process, although versatile, cannot be used to form microfluidic devices with embedded tall topological features, such as thick-film electrodes and porous reactor beds. This paper presents an elegant surface micromachining process for microfluidic devices that allows complete leak-proof sealing and a conformal contact of the PDMS with tall pre-existing topographical features and demonstrates this approach by embedding 6 µm thick Ag/AgCl (high capacity 1680 µA s) electrodes inside the microchannels. In this process, thin spin-cast films of the PDMS are used as the structural material and a photoresist is used as the sacrificial material. A crucial parameter, namely adhesion of the spun-cast structural layer to the substrate, was characterized for different pre-polymer ratios using a standard tensile test, and a 1:3 (curing agent:base) combination was found to be the best with a maximum adhesion strength of 7.2 MPa. The elastic property of the PDMS allowed extremely fast release times of ∼1 min of the fabricated microchannels. The versatility of this process was demonstrated by the fabrication of a pneumatic microvalve with multi-layered microchannel geometry. The valve closure occurred at 6.37 kPa.