Polymer chip, fabrication casting

Only very few studies with alternative materials and fabrication methods have been published. Ekstrom et al. [35] demonstrated the feasibility of structuring inexpensive polymeric materials by means of a microfabricated master for the production of microchannel systems. The structured polymer film was mechanically clamped between two glass plates to form a closed channel system. Recently, a similar route for the fabrication of microchannel chips that relies on casting of an elastomeric polymer material against a microfabricated master has been presented by Effenhauser et al. [36] (see Sect. 3.4). 

FIGURE 2.14 Electron micrograph of a turn in the channel fabricated in a PDMS chip, created by casting the polymer against a positive relief, which is made of photoresist patterned on a glass substrate. The roughness in the side wall arises from the limited resolution of the transparency used as a photomask in photolithography [1033]. Reprinted with permission from the American Chemical Society. 

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