Interlocking mechanical and fluidic interconnections for microfluidic circuit boards

Deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) is employed to fabricate mechanically interlocking structures through which high-density fluidic interconnections are provided between microchannel-containing substrates. The geometric versatility that is achievable with DRIE facilitates the fabrication of high density interconnects of two types: (1) structures with mechanically interlocking fins used to align arbitrarily placed fluidic via holes and (2) interlocking hole and notched cylinder pairs that accomplish mechanical and fluidic interconnect in the same structure. Both types of interconnects are tested using silicon microfluidic circuit boards with off-chip coupling for flow control and measurement, and components that consist of simple channel arrays. The fin and notched cylinder/hole interconnects are tested up to pressures of 100 kPa and 70 kPa, respectively. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.