3D printing microfluidic structures for prototyping has gained popularity due to several advantages over traditional photolithography and PDMS mold-based microfabrication techniques, including faster production, lower costs, and greater versatility. We report a custom UV curable resin consisting of Poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate as the monomer, Phenylbis(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl) phosphine oxide as UV photoinitiator and 2-nitrophenyl phenyl sulfide as UV blocker that enables us to fabricate transparent stereolithography prints with tunable mechanical properties. We demonstrate the use of an off-the-shelf and inexpensive desktop masked stereolithography (MSLA) based 3D printer to (i) fabricate complex structures with sub 100 micron-sized features with 3D printed molds for conventional PDMS casting, (ii) fabricate unibody microfluidic chips with embedded channels and (iii) integrate functional microfluidic components such as a finger-actuated fluid pump and quake valves in a one-step single print. We demonstrate the fabrication of multi-layered microfluidic channels, droplet generators, and DNA amplification chips. The convenience and swiftness of our proposed technique enable one to go from an “idea stage” to a “fabricated microfluidic chip” within ~hours as opposed to traditional clean room-based microfabrication (~days), which could drastically lower the barrier to entry and greatly accelerate lab-on-a-chip research.

Cross-linking multi-UV curable resins for rapid and inexpensive fabrication of microfluidic channels with tunable mechanical properties

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