Abstract
This paper presents a lab-on-a-chip development method that applies the Young–Laplace equation to design the geometries of a patterned water droplet, and then using the droplet as a mold to fabricate three-dimensional polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) channels. We demonstrate the method by designing and fabricating an on-chip funnel. We then subsequently trap beads of graded diameter in the tapered section of the funnel to make on-chip filters of controllable pore size. After packing the funnel with beads, the cutoff pore size of the fabricated filter agrees closely with our estimate. This approach provides a straightforward, low-cost, yet powerful way to design and fabricate microfluidic devices with 3D features.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the National Human Genome Research Institute Grant No. 1 R01 HG01497 (PI: D. R. Meldrum) and Mr. Tao Peng’s public-domain MATLAB code for circle detection.
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Goff, C.M., Chao, Sh., Johnson, R.H. et al. Surface tension-controlled three-dimensional water molds: theory and applications. Microfluid Nanofluid 13, 891–897 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-012-0997-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-012-0997-4