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2018
Conference Paper
Title
Manufacturing and replication of sub-10 mm micro-bowls for biomedical sensor systems
Abstract
The technical implementation of a novel biosensor for the highly parallelized screening of biochemical binding reactions depends on the manufacturing of an array of micro-bowls with a diameter dB 10 µm with an aspect ratio ar 1. Since the operating principle of the biosensor is based on the stimulation of stationary optical waves in micro-spheres, micro-bowls for the immobilisation of these spheres in a microfluidic environment are necessary. Due to this operating principle, the micro-bowls need to separate the spheres from the fluid flow and ensure the careful adherence of single spheres, coincidently. Moreover, the pathway for the optical accessibility of the micro spheres should be unrestricted. This work presents a process chain for the manufacturing of microfluidic chips with an array of n 1,000 micro-spheres by ultra-precision milling of mold inserts, the replication by precision injection molding as well as experimental trial results. With regard to manufacturing of the mold inserts, the uniform and burr free ultraprecision milling of large aspect ratio micro posts was investigated within a parametric study. Furthermore, the replication of the micro-bowls was examined by taking the consistent replication of the entire bowl array, the adverse formation of fillets, and the replication of surfaces with optical functions into special account. By the analysis of the microfluidic and optical properties of the replicated structures, the correlation between mold manufacturing, replication, and operating conditions can be performed.
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