Avaliação dos parâmetros do laser ultravioleta na usinagem de microcanais em policarbonato

Abstract

The laser machining technologies has been constantly upgraded to feed the manufacturing of micro-nano structures need. An important usage of the laser machining technology is the manufacturing of microfluidic chips, which ones are needed in fluidic analysis. The request of these chips is growing fast in the biomedical, chemistry and mechanic engineering fields. With some efforts, entire laboratories can be reduced to a microchip area. These also called lab-on-a-chips, or micro-Total Analysis System (μ-TAS), are devices design to mix, pre-treat, separation (DNA) and detection of elements in the fluid samples. This work presents a study of the influence of some laser milling parameters in the manufacturing of microchannels for microfluidics. The objective is to survey the feasibility of using a nitrogen laser to machining microchannels in polycarbonate, and study the interaction between the machining parameters and the shape of the microchannels. It was been used an ultraviolet wavelength LASER (337,1nm) for the milling of polycarbonate samples under different levels of power delivered to surface, pulses superposition and number of path repetitions. It was used a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) table that works at "XY" axis. The superposition has more effect over the depth and width acquired; the number of path repetitions and the bean energy play a second role in the process, being usable to ajustments.