Fabrication of polymeric microfluidic devices with tunable wetting behavior for biomedical applications

We demonstrate the fabrication of microchannels with specific fluidic behavior due to micro- and/or nanostructures on the surfaces. With a combination of hot embossing and microthermoforming it is possible to produce microchannels with specific surface properties. These surface properties are highly dependent on the micro- and nanostructures embossed into the material. Different structure sizes and geometries where examined by contact angle measurements. Here the dependency of diameter and pitch of the structures on the contact angle is examined as well as the material impact. These results enable the fabrication of highly specific surfaces tunable to an application.