Engineering Commons^™

Surface Modification Of Su-8 By Photografting Of Functional Polymers For Lab-On-A-Chip Applications, Zhan Gao, David Henthorn, Chang-Soo Kim

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Due to the high flexibility and versatility in the process development of microfluidic devices, an epoxybased, high-aspect ratio photoresist SU-8 is now attracting attention as the main structuring material of the fluidic channels. Manipulation of the surface properties of SU-8 channel wall is critical to attach functional films such as enzyme-immobilized layers or biocompatible layers. We describe a new in situ patterning method to form a hydrogel film on SU-8 by a photografted polymerization procedure. The hydrophobic surface of SU-8 is modified using a surface bound initiator HCPK (1-hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone). A p-HEMA (poly-2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate) hydrogel film is grafted by photopolymerization …