Development and implementation of a system testing device for microfluidic devices

Abstract

The microfluidic industry has seen tremendous growth over the last years and is

expecting further growth in the future. Polymer is the material of choice at the moment

for many applications and is being manufactured into microfluidic devices through

injection molding.

There is no established way of mass producing the mold inserts at the moment. Part of

the research conducted at SMA is aimed to explore options in powder injection molding

as a quick and reliable process to mass produce mold inserts.

During the research phase one needs a way to assess the quality of the new inserts and its

suitability to produce molds and microfluidic devices. This is currently achieved by

manufacturing the final microfluidic parts using the molds and measuring the properties

of these parts using conventional metrology methods at the laboratory. These include

measurements carried out with the optical profilometer and the scanning electron

microscope.