AVS 50th International Symposium
    Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) Wednesday Sessions
       Session MM-WeM

Paper MM-WeM7
Flexible, Polyimide-Based Microfluidic Devices for BioMEMS

Wednesday, November 5, 2003, 10:20 am, Room 320

Session: New Frontiers in Microsystems: NEMS and BioMEMS
Presenter: S. Metz, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
Authors: S. Metz, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
A. Bertsch, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
Ph. Renaud, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
Correspondent: Click to Email
We present flexible, polyimide-based microfluidic devices for a wide range of applications in the field of BioMEMS. Fluidic microchannels are manufactured by a modified lamination technique or a sacrificial layer method. For the lamination technique a layer of uncured polyimide is irreversibly bonded to open channel structures of semi-cured polyimide, which yields very high bond strengths. The sacrificial layer technique implies the use of a heat-depolymerizable polycarbonate sacrificial material. The material is embedded in two layers of polyimide and diffuses through the channel cover layer during the last fabrication step leaving empty microfluidic channel networks behind. The microchannels can be combined with metallization layers for the integration of microelectrodes inside the microchannels, which is a major requirement in the field of miniaturized bio-chemical analysis. The electrodes inside the channels can be used for fluid actuation or detection of substances. The embedded layers of metal can also be used as microelectrodes for the recording or stimulation of bio-electric activity. This results in devices, which are capable of selectively delivering fluids to cells and at the same time enable electrophysiological monitoring. Additionally, the channel walls can be made porous by ion track technology, which yields sub-micron, high aspect-ratio pores perpendicular to the fluidic structure with a pre-defined pore density. The pores can be generated in the top and/or bottom channel walls of the microfluidic device and the pore size is adjustable down to tens of nanometers. These devices can be used for the separation of particles by cross-flow filtration.