Parylene micromolding, a rapid and low-cost fabrication method for parylene microchannel

A new fabrication method of enclosed parylene microchannel, so-called 'parylene micromolding' is presented in this paper. The conventional fabrication method based on surface micromachining technique using photoresist as a sacrificial layer is slow and costly because it is diffusion-limited process and requires several photolithography steps. Parylene micromolding method introduced here employs molding concept, which makes a rapid and low-cost fabrication of parylene microchannel possible. This method consists of first Si mold fabrication and parylene deposition on both Si mold and flexible stainless steel sheet, second thermal bonding between two parylene layers, and third releasing parylene microchannel from the Si mold. Main characteristics and technical issues of this new method are discussed in this paper. Some example devices such as meander type channel, long spiral channel, electrophoretic channel, and dielectrophoretic channel have been fabricated by this method and are presented in this paper. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.