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This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to develop commercially viable methods for the fabrication of high aspect ratio micro- and nano-structures for microfluidic applications using contact nano-printing. X-ray lithography will be used to produce molding tools to emboss structures in polymers. Microfluidic channels will be fabricated with ordered arrays of micro- and nano-posts filling these channels. Molding tools will be constructed from metal electroform to allow hot embossing or injection molding of various polymers. Mechanical properties of both the electroform and the polymers will be evaluated for the ability to minimize structure deformation during demolding. Various gluing and heat annealing assembly methods to enclose the microfluidic channels will be investigated. A number of post geometries will be examined for feature integrity during molding, demolding and assembly. Fluid transport through the ordered arrays will be studied in detail using confocal fluorescence microscopy.

The commercial applications of this project will be in the area of micro-column separations such as for reversed phase chromatography and for micro-reactors