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Microfluidic lab on chip systems require components to transport, mix, separate and analyse small volumes of different fluids. In this study, we report on the laser generation of internal hollow architectures created by focused 514 nm femtosecond laser pulses inside PMMA bulk material. Size and cross-sectional shape of a single internal generated microchannel are determined by the intensity distribution inside the focal voxel and can be controlled either by the numerical aperture of the focusing objective or by laser beam shaping. As both approaches are practically limited with respect to the realizable cross-sectional shapes, we present a process based on an internal hatching to expand the achievable channel cross-sections and thereby enable the possibility to create complex 3D shaped internal structures. This process is applied to create fully internal functional microfluidic elements such as mixers which are part of most polymer lab-on-chip systems.
The authors report on the laser generation of three-dimensional microchannel architectures with fundamentally unlimited channel length by focused 514 nm femtosecond laser pulses inside polymethylmethacrylate bulk material. The three-dimensional channel layout is implemented by moving the specimen using three-dimensional motorized stages, allowing freely chosen complex shaped channel architectures. Based on nonlinear absorption of high intensities around the focal volume, a material modification, including a refractive-index shift is triggered. After laser exposure, the channel is created by a gaseous degradation of exposed areas during an annealing process. Cross section and aspect ratio of thus generated microchannels are strongly influenced by the numerical aperture of the applied objective. To obtain a circular cross-sectional shape, high focusing objectives are necessary. In this report, the authors improve the existing setup by using an elliptical input beam, transforming the intensity distribution of the focal area in the propagation direction to a circular shape even for low and medium numerical aperture focusing objectives and therefore avoiding a small working distance as a limiting factor for processing depth. The elliptical input beam is obtained by insertion of a slit mask in front of the focusing objective. The ellipticity of the incident beam defines the aspect ratio of the generated microchannels. Furthermore, the size of internal microchannels is adjustable by varying laser and annealing process parameters.
In this contribution we report on the possibilities of dry and lubricated friction modification
introduced by different laser surface texturing methods. We compare the potential of Laser-Induced
Periodic Surface Structures and Laser Beam Interference Ablation on 100Cr6 steel in a linear
reciprocating ball-on-disc configuration using 100Cr6 steel and tungsten carbide balls with load
forces between 50mN and 1000 mN. For dry friction, we find a possibility to reduce the coefficient
of friction and we observe a pronounced direction dependency for surfaces fabricated by Laser
Beam Interference Ablation. Furthermore, Laser-Induced Periodic Surface Structures result in
a load-dependent friction reduction for lubricated linear reciprocating movements. This work helps
to identify the modification behaviour of laser generated micro structures with feature sizes of
approximately 1μm and reveals new possibilities for surface engineering
We report on the joining of two different transparent thermoplastic polymers using infrared femtosecond laser pulses. Solely being based on nonlinear absorption, the developed micro-welding process for cyclo-olefin copolymers and polycarbonate does not require any intermediate absorbing layers or any surface pre-processing of the welding partners. In addition, it circumvents any heat damages at the outer surfaces of the welding partners. Femtosecond laser welding of cyclo-olefin copolymers is improved by increasing the numerical aperture of the focusing setup resulting in a wider and more homogenous welding cross-section. Welding results are classified by shear strength and fracture modes are analyzed using scanning electron microscopy. Furthermore, we demonstrate, to the best of our knowledge, first results of ultrashort pulse laser welding of transparent polycarbonate, one of the most used transparent polymers. In view of an optimized and stable micro-welding process, we study the influence of laser power and focal position on welding results. The application of ultrashort pulse laser welding for Lab-on-chip fabrication technologies is demonstrated by sealing an ultrashort pulse laser ablated microfluidic device based on a transparent polymer substrate.