A Reusable In-Plane Polymer Integrated Microfluidic Interconnect

A novel reusable, in-plane polymer interconnect directly integrated into a microfluidic system is demonstrated. This approach features plug-and-play style connections to microfluidic networks in which commercially available non-coring syringe needles are simply inserted through pre-defined polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) septums to form rapid, on-demand connections to microchannels. These septums are mechanically anchored by one layer of SU-8 that also forms the microchannels. Interconnect design, fabrication, theoretical analysis, and experimental results (pull-out force and leakage) are presented.