Microfluidic mixer devices fabricated using high-aspect-ratio glass micromachining technology

Glass is a preferable substrate material for BioMEMS or LOC (Lab-on-a-chip) since it has good chemical and thermal stability and transparency. Conventionally, however, wet chemical etching has been utilized in microfabrication of glass plates, and hence it was impossible to fabricate precise and/or high-aspect-ratio microstructures. In the last two years deep dry etching technology of quartz and borosilicate glass has been developed using high-density plasmas and metal masks. In this paper feasible and reliable fabrication process of multilayer microfluidic devices and micromixers has been studied, which are useful for rapid and parallel operation of plural reagents.