| ABSTRACT |
A novel method is presented for fabricating PDMS-based microchannel. The mold consists of a PDMS structure rather than the commonly used SU-8 mold with fixed shape. This structure is prepared by transferring the desired microchannel pattern into one PDMS substrate via lithography and bonding it to a spin-coated PDMS membrane with the oxygen plasma activated technology. Through applying proper pressure to this structure and keeping it constant during the whole molding process, the resulted shape is totally replicated into the device layer, constituting the final main body of the microchannel. The depth of the microchannel can be easily controlled by changing the pressure. At the same time, through designing different widths at different positions in one microchannel,it is straight forward to realize microchannel structure with multi-depth in one step using one photomask. Both of these characteristics have been successfully demonstrated in our experiments and it will definitely find wide applications in lab-on-a-chip area.
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