3D large-scale fused silica microfluidic chips enabled by hybrid laser microfabrication for continuous-flow UV photochemical synthesis

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hybrid laser microfabrication method combining ultrafast laser-assisted etching and CO2 laser melting to create large-scale, complex 3D fused silica microfluidic chips for UV photochemical synthesis.

Contribution

It presents a novel hybrid laser fabrication technique enabling reliable production of large, complex 3D fused silica microfluidic devices without bonding.

Findings

Successful fabrication of centimeter-scale 3D microfluidic chips

Effective on-chip mixing and photochemical synthesis demonstrated

High transparency and UV compatibility of the microfluidic reactors

Abstract

We demonstrate a hybrid laser microfabrication approach, which combines the technical merits of ultrafast laser-assisted chemical etching and carbon dioxide laser-induced in-situ melting, for centimeter-scale and bonding-free fabrication of 3D complex hollow microstructures in fused silica glass. With the developed approach, large-scale fused silica microfluidic chips with integrated 3D cascaded micromixing units can be reliably manufactured. High-performance on-chip mixing and continuous-flow photochemical synthesis under UV LEDs irradiation at ~280 nm were demonstrated using the manufactured chip, indicating a powerful capability for versatile fabrication of highly transparent all-glass microfluidic reactors for on-chip photochemical synthesis.