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Creative Biolabs has developed fully automatic and semi-automatic glass microfluidic mass production and rapid prototyping crafts, which meet the needs for the fabrication and development of glass microfluidic systems and realize high-precision and rapid manufacturing of glass chips.

Properties of Glass Chips

As the most commonly used and oldest container/reactor material in traditional experiments, glass has also been extensively developed in the field of microfluidics. Glass is mainly made of silica and other oxides mixed in different proportions. The most commonly used glasses in the field of microfluidics are soda lime, borosilicate and quartz. As one of the oldest microfluidic chip materials, glass has the following advantages:

• Excellent chemical resistance, glass can carry organic solvents, and acidic/alkaline reagents.
• Well-established surface modification program, developed over years resulting in the easiest and most comprehensive well-characterized biochemical covalent coupling scheme.
• Excellent optical transparency, low background fluorescence and high transparency glass microfluidic chips are suitable for various optical detection systems.
• High mechanical strength, the glass is highly resistant to mechanical stress and can withstand extremely high channel pressures.
• Excellent thermal stability, glass microfluidics exhibits excellent thermal stability and high-temperature resistance in various applications, and produces almost no thermal expansion. Surface properties, glass is hydrophilic in nature and does not allow small molecules to diffuse from the channels, high resistivity allows high-voltage electrophoretic separation.

While many biochemical experiments work well with glass as a substrate, there are some disadvantages of glass that should be taken into consideration when selecting materials for microfluidic systems. Glass has hardly any toughness, so it cracks easily when impacted. Etching produces channels with unalterable rounded features. The processing of glass chips requires complex and professional instruments and equipment, which cannot be quickly prototyped in a laboratory environment after obtaining the mold. Glass chips are typically more expensive than the more popular PDMS and thermoplastics.

Table.1 Property of Glass Chips.

Fabrication of Glass Chips

Creative Biolabs has developed and optimized the production technology of glass microfluidic chips, and flexibly select the most suitable fabrication technology according to different precision, structure and application requirements.

Photolithography and Etching

The combination of photolithography and etching is one of the most commonly used fabrication methods for microfluidic chips. Wet etching can process glass chips with a depth of 5 μm-300 μm, and obtain smooth channels with a width at least twice the depth.

Fig 1. Dry etching and wet etching of glass. (Creative Biolabs)

CNC Machining

CNC machining is capable of directly creating rectangular channels or spherical channels with a large aspect ratio. The channel width should not be less than 700 μm and the depth is greater than 50 μm. Spherical channels tend to have better surface smoothness than rectangular channels.

Fig 2. CNC machining of Glass. (Creative Biolabs)

Laser Engraving

Laser engraving is capable of low-cost and rapid fabrication of glass chips with a depth not less than 100 μm and a width not less than 30 μm. However, it should be noted that the chips obtained by laser processing often have poor surface smoothness.

Fig 3. Laser Engraving of glass. (Creative Biolabs)

Thermoforming

Thermoforming can create glass channels with a height not exceeding 70 μm and a width not less than 30 μm. Our optimized thermocompression forming is the most widely used mass manufacturing technique for glass chips.

Fig 4. Thermoforming of glass. (Creative Biolabs)

Services

Equipped with complete microfluidic system fabrication equipment and well-trained staff members, Creative Biolabs provides our clients all over the world with one-stop solutions service for glass microfluidic chip fabrication. Our services will include chip structural design, sketch verification, prototype production, chip fabrication, surface modification and channel sealing. Years of micro-processing experience and cutting-edge theory allow us to select different manufacturing and sealing approaches. We also offer ready-to-use glass microfluidic chips. Please don't hesitate to contact us for any needs.

For Research Use Only. Not For Clinical Use.