A low-temperature bonding technique using spin-on fluorocarbon polymers to assemble microsystems

A new low-temperature biochemically compatible polymer bonding process has been successfully developed. The bonding has been characterized for bond strength and chemical resistance. This technique has successfully addressed a major challenge in the development of microfluidic systems from discrete components by enabling the bonding of the components to the microfluidic motherboards at low temperatures and ensuring reliable, leak-proof and chemically inert bonding. This bonding technique uses a spin-on Teflon-like amorphous fluorocarbon polymer. The bonding technique lowers the bonding temperature (similar to160 degreesC), shows a good bond strength of 4.3 MPa in silicon-to-silicon, and has excellent chemical resistance to various chemicals used in microelectromechanical systems processing.