3D Printing of Micromolds and Microfluidic Devices
Authors: Takamatsu Kyuichiro , Basher Samiul , He Sun , Sato Kei , Yoshida Kazunari , Sakai Kazuyuki , Kawakami Masaru , Furukawa Hidemitsu , Yoshida Tsukasa , Khosla Ajit 
Published: February 2020

Over the past 30 years there has been a steady increase in interest in polymeric microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip technologies. The global microfluidics market is projected to reach USD 8.78 Billion by 2021 from USD 3.65 Billion in 2015, at a CAGR of 19.2% during the forecast period (2016 to 2021) [1]. While many polymers have been employed to realize microfluidic devices, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a silicone based elastomer, has been widely used because of its biocompatibility, low cost, low toxicity, high oxidative and thermal stability, optical transparent, low permeability to water, low electrical conductivity, and ease of micropatterning [2,3, 4,5,6,7]. However, microfabrication of PDMS based microfluidic devices involves fabrication of micromolds which need expenisve infrastruce, such as clean room, photolithography equipment, masks etc. [8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. Previously we had presented 3-D printing of complex MEMS structures [14] and other devices [15,16]. In this paper, we present fabrication of microfluidic molds and devices by employing 3D printing technology that are otherwise time consuming and difficult to manufacture with state of the art 2-D MEMS fabrication technology. Figure 1 shows optical micrograph of 3D printed micromold channels.

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Figure 1