Low-cost and flexible film-based digital microfluidic devices

Abstract

This work proposed a low-cost and rapid fabrication approach for flexible thin film-based digital microfluidics. In this approach, the carbon electrodes were screen-printed on the surface of a polyester film using carbon resistive ink. Then, a layer of polyethylene was applied to seal the polyester film with electrodes. Finally, a surface treatment was conducted to enhance the hydrophobicity. Compared with the conventional fabrication approaches for digital microfluidic devices using metal electrodes deposition on glass/silicon substrate, the proposed fabrication technique for polymer-based digital microfluidic device is simple, low-cost, flexible, and without the requirement of sophisticated photolithography procedure, metal deposition instruments and cleanroom environment. The proposed polymer-based digital microfluidic device has a total thickness <200 μm. The whole device is transparent, flexible and bendable. A series of tests were also conducted for the manipulation of water droplets using electrowetting on the fabricated digital microfluidic devices. The proposed fabrication technique for flexible film-based digital microfluidics could have wide potential point-of-care applications in biological and medical filed.