Microchannels and chambers using one step

fabrication technique
12 Sep 2013
By Aliya Anwar.
Vivek Kamat, KM Paknikar and Dhananjay Bodas*
Centre for Nanobioscience, Agharkar Research Institute, GG Agarkar road, Pune 411 004
E-mail: dsbodas[at]aripune.org; Tel: +91-20-25653680
Why is this useful?

At present many techniques are employed for fabricating channels and chambers, most of them using
photolithography and soft lithography [1]. The fabrication of a circular channel and chamber in a monolithic
design is challenging, which can be achieved using copper wires of varying diameters (from 20 m). This
simplistic process also eliminates usage of expensive equipment, can be performed in a normal laboratory
environment (doesnt require clean room facilities) and high fidelity structures could be obtained.
Fabrication of chambers can be achieved in a simple, fast and novel approach by utilizing agarose gel.
Agarose gel is an important component used in molecular biology experiments. Agarose powder is mixed
with water and is boiled, after cooling the liquid polymerizes to form a gel. This gel can be utilized to mold the
desired chamber (variable size and shape) which can be utilized for making chambers on chip.
What do I need?

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PDMS (1 part curing agent and 10 part of base)

Agarose (1% in distilled water)
Copper wires of desired diameter.
Square box 5 x 5cm which serves as chip caster.
Used syringes ( 4 mm in the present case)

What do I do?

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PDMS is prepared by mixing 1:10 proportion (curing agent to base) and degassing for 30 min in a
vacuum dessicator [2, 3].
1% agarose powder is mixed in distilled water and boiled in microwave for 1 min until a clear solution
is obtained. Decreasing the amount of agarose will result in softer gel
Cut the tip off of a 4 mm diameter 1 ml syringe. Pour in the agarose solution.
Allow the solution to cool inside the syringe and push the plunger to obtain gel in cylindrical form
(see Fig 1). This cylinder so obtained can be cut into desired heights as per design requirement. In
our case we have used 5 mm high cylinder for fabrication of the chamber (see Fig 2).
Micro dimensional copper wire is inserted through the cylinder (see Fig 3) and the whole assembly is
placed in a box for molding PDMS (see Fig4) and cured at 70C for 3 h in a convection oven.
After curing, place the chip in IPA for 5 min for removing the copper wire. Agarose gel can be
removed by placing the chip in boiling water for 10 min. or by passing hot water using the
microchannel. Repeat the process until agarose is washed completely without any traces.

7.

Thus, what we have achieved is a microchannel and chamber connected together fabricated in a
single step (see Figs 5 and 6). This monolith design could be extended for multiple applications such
as mixing, as a reaction chamber for carrying nanoparticle synthesis, cell lysis, DNA amplification
etc. [3]

Fig 1: After cooling push the plunger to get a cylindrical agarose gel

Fig 2: Cut desired height to get small cylindrical gels

Fig 3: Insert copper wire of desired diameter through the gel

Fig 4: Place in a caster box, add PDMS and allow for curing 70C for 3 h

Fig 5: Top view of the fabricated chip

Fig 6: Fluid inside a monolithically fabricated microchannel and a chamber

References

1. SKY. Tang and GM. Whitesides, Basic microfluidic and soft lithographic techniques in Optofluidics:
Fundamentals, Devices and Applications, McGraw-Hill Professional, 2010.
2. J Friend and L Yeo, Biomicrofluidics, 2010, 4(2), 26502. DOI 10.1063/1.3259624.
3. S Agrawal, A Morarka, D Bodas and KM Paknikar, Appl Biochem Biotechnol. 2012, 167(6), 1668-77. DOI:
10.1007/s12010-012-9597-8.