Low‐Temperature Thermal Bonding of PMMA Microfluidic Chips

Abstract A new method for thermally bonding poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) substrates to form microfluidic chips is described. A PMMA substrate is first replicated by means of hot embossing with a metal template. Then a layer of low molecular weight PMMA film is formed on the PMMA cover plate by spin coating. Thermal bonding for channel enclosure is accomplished by heating the clamped PMMA substrate and cover plate at 95°C for 20 min. The cross section demonstrated by the SEM photographs shows no obvious change has appeared. The functionality of these low temperature‐bonded microfluidic substrates was demonstrated by performing high‐resolution electrophoretic separations of the mixture of hydrazine compound.

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