Fabrication of miniaturized biotechnical devices

In recent years a number of microfabrication technologies have been developed suitable for the realization of micro products on industrial scale. One field that demands for miniaturization is the field of molecular biotechnology. In order to handle thousands of different substances within a short limit of time and minimum consumption of valuable biomolecules microstructured tools for synthesis, separation and analysis are required. Most current developments in this field are based on bulk and surface micromachining of silicon and are therefore limited to one material. Micromolding technologies permit the cost effective mass production of microstructures from a wide variety of modern high-performance polymers. This paper is focused on the development and fabrication of miniaturized devices for biotechnical applications: a self-filling micropump suited for liquid transport and dosage, nanotiterplates for combinatorial chemistry, fluidic chips suited for DNA-sequencing and chips for biosensors. For micromolding these structures conventional molding techniques have to be adapted. This comprises the mold insert fabrication either by LIGA-technique or by advanced methods of precision engineering, process adaptation to enable high density packaging, the screening of polymer materials to meet demands for optical transparency or stability towards particular solvents, and quality control for high process reproducibility.