Wang Jiqiang, Yan Yongda, Geng Yanquan, Gan Yang, Fang Zhuo
Key Laboratory of Micro-systems and Micro-structures Manufacturing of Ministry of Education, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, Heilongjiang, People's Republic of China.
Center for Precision Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, Heilongjiang, People's Republic of China.
Nanoscale Res Lett. 2019 Apr 17;14(1):136. doi: 10.1186/s11671-019-2962-6.
In current research realm, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based nanofluidic devices are widely used in medical, chemical, and biological applications. In the present paper, a novel nanomilling technique (consisting of an AFM system and a piezoelectric actuator) was proposed to fabricate nanochannels (with controllable sizes) on PDMS chips, and nanochannel size was controlled by the driving voltage and frequency inputted to the piezoelectric actuator. Moreover, microchannel and nanochannel molds were respectively fabricated by UV lithography and AFM tip-based nanomilling, and finally, PDMS slabs with micro/nanochannels were obtained by transfer process. The influences of PDMS weight ratio on nanochannel size were also investigated. The bonding process of microchannel and nanochannel slabs was conducted on a homemade alignment system consisted of an optical monocular microscope and precision stages. Furthermore, the effects of nanochannel size on electrical characteristics of KCl solution (concentration of 1 mM) were analyzed. Therefore, it can be concluded that PDMS nanofluidic devices with multiple nanochannels of sub-100-nm depth can be efficiently and economically fabricated by the proposed method.
在当前的研究领域中，基于聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）的纳米流体装置广泛应用于医学、化学和生物应用。在本文中，提出了一种新颖的纳米研磨技术（由原子力显微镜（AFM）系统和压电致动器组成），用于在PDMS芯片上制造（尺寸可控的）纳米通道，并且纳米通道的尺寸由输入到压电致动器的驱动电压和频率控制。此外，分别通过紫外光刻和基于AFM针尖的纳米研磨制造微通道和纳米通道模具，最后通过转移工艺获得具有微/纳米通道的PDMS平板。还研究了PDMS重量比对纳米通道尺寸的影响。微通道和纳米通道平板的键合过程在由光学单目显微镜和精密平台组成的自制对准系统上进行。此外，分析了纳米通道尺寸对1 mM浓度的KCl溶液电学特性的影响。因此，可以得出结论，通过所提出的方法可以高效且经济地制造具有深度小于100 nm的多个纳米通道的PDMS纳米流体装置。
