単一細胞計測のための３次元ベンチュリ形状を有するマイクロ流体チップ

抄録

This paper proposed a novel technique to fabricate 3-dimensional microchannel using wet-etching technology with a Ti/Au sacrifice layer. The technique can control the taper angle of the etching undercuts of the glass substrates nearby the contour of the etching masks. The previous technique is not compatible to the fabrication of microfluidic chip because of the notching effects on the boundary of the sacrifice layer. To overcome this issue, the membrane condition of the Ti/Au sacrifice layer were improved by controlling the pressure under the sputtering deposition and by the annealing process. As a result, we found that the chamber pressure of the sputtering deposition should be at 10 Pa, and the annealing process should be at 400°C in the air. Since the membrane had a number of gold grains, we guess that a certain condition of the Ti/Au membrane could effectively migrate with each other, and it could cause the local cell effect on the all contour of the membrane. Therefore, the etching rate on the contour became constant and consequently the notch effect was suppressed. This technique can be applied to many applications of the microfluidic systems. In an example, we demonstrated to suppress the sticking effect of particles in flow at the contracted area of the microchannel. This is quite important to do some single cell measurement in the microfluidic chip.