Polymer Microelectromechanical Systems: Fabrication and Applications in Biology and Biological Force Measurements

Polymer materials are increasingly being utilized in biomedical microand nanotechnolgy applications. This trend has been driven by a several factors ranging from materials compatibility to cost. The manufacturing techniques used to produce these devices are considerably less mature than their silicon-based counterparts. New manufacturing techniques are needed to address unique processing challenges posed by polymer materials. To this end, we have developed a set of soft lithography based micromolding techniques for fabrication of polymer microstructures and devices from a wide range of materials. Materials include common thermoplastic polymers such as poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and polystyrene as well as functional materials such as conducting polymers. The processing techniques developed through this work are capable of producing a wide range of structures including continuous microstructured films, isolated polymer microstructures, and suspended structures. The nature of the materials and the non-cleanroom based micromolding processes makes these techniques considerably more cost effective with respect to both materials and processing costs. In addition to developing processing techniques, characterization of the processes as well as the materials is a critical step for implementation of polymers in practical device applications. Process characterization was performed by systematically varying process parameters and evaluating the resulting microstructures using common micro-