Fabrication of Polymeric Biochips With µ-Fluidic Channel by Injection Molding Technology

The polymeric biochip has been focused as a cheap, rapid and simplified method to replace the existing bio- chemical laboratory works. This biochip is formed miniaturized lab functionalities on a chip with the development of MEMS technology. This has many micro-fluidic channels for the flow of sample and reagents, mixing and detection task. Existing technologies for the biochip fabrication are utilizing various micro pattern forming methods, such as etching, LIGA, and micro-imprinting etc. In this study, an injection molding process with micro mold was applied to the mass pro- duction of polymeric biochip which contains micro-fluidic channel. Micro cutting process was applied to fabricate the core feature for molding micro-fluidic channel. Therefore, a series of micro cutting experiments using micro endmill were per- formed to determine optimum cutting conditions. Besides, the low temperature micro-cutting experiments using micro endmills were performed to improve the quality of micro mold core by reducing the burr and surface roughness. After the verification of low temperature micro-cutting process efficiency, this process was used to fabricate required mold core for micro feature. Finally, test injection molding process using manufactured micro mold and COC polymer were performed, and then the results were investigated.