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Solvent vapor treatment controls surface wettability in PMMA femtosecond-laser-ablated microchannels

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Abstract

A solvent vapor treatment was applied to femtosecond-laser-ablated microchannels in PMMA to selectively restore the original hydrophilic wetting behavior of the pristine surface. The hydrophobic surface of the microchannels from the submicron porosity induced by ablation becomes smoother and more transparent after the treatment. This simple and low-cost method, together with suitable masking, can produce wettability patterns that may be exploited to develop passive microfluidic elements such as valves and mixers.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the European Commission (microFLUID FP7 Project, Contract No. ICT-2007-224205), Regione Lombardia (MINILAB project, Contract no. MAN-18) and Fondazione CARIPLO (Contract no. 2010-0635).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Chimica, Materiali e Ingegneria Chimica “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Carmela De Marco, Marinella Levi & Stefano Turri

  2. Istituto di Fotonica e Nanotecnologie (IFN)-CNR, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Shane M. Eaton, Rebeca Martinez-Vazquez, Giulio Cerullo & Roberto Osellame

  3. Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133, Milan, Italy

    Stefano Rampini & Giulio Cerullo

Authors
  1. Carmela De Marco
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  2. Shane M. Eaton
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  3. Rebeca Martinez-Vazquez
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  4. Stefano Rampini
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  5. Giulio Cerullo
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  6. Marinella Levi
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  7. Stefano Turri
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  8. Roberto Osellame
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Correspondence to Carmela De Marco.

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De Marco, C., Eaton, S.M., Martinez-Vazquez, R. et al. Solvent vapor treatment controls surface wettability in PMMA femtosecond-laser-ablated microchannels. Microfluid Nanofluid 14, 171–176 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-012-1035-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-012-1035-2

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