Ultrafast laser-assisted etching provides a simple and flexible method for the bonding-free manufacture of glass-based microchannels with three-dimensional (3D) configurations and multiple functionalities. However, when the lengths of the required microchannels reach several centimeters, this method often suffers from manufacturing controllability due to the limitation of etching selectivity. Herein, we demonstrate our progress in 3D manufacturing large-scale fused silica microfluidic chips based on a hybrid laser microfabrication approach, which combines the merits of ultrafast laserassisted etching and carbon dioxide laser-induced melting. In this approach, extra-access ports are introduced to enhance the homogeneity of laser-fabricated 3D microchannels and subsequently sealed using defocusing carbon dioxide laser irradiation to form all-glass closed microchannels with few inlets and outlets. Moreover, we introduce some important applications of fabricated microfluidic chips.
Femtosecond laser-induced chemical etching (FLICE) has proved itself a powerful approach when attempting to fabricate three-dimensional (3D) microstructures in glass, whereas maintaining a high spatial resolution in fabricating samples of great heights/thicknesses is challenging due to the diffraction nature of light waves. Here, we demonstrate the fabrication of macro-scale 3D glass objects of large heights up to ~3.8 cm with a well-balanced lateral and longitudinal resolution of ~20 μm using the FLICE. Moreover, a freeform hand printed with embedded blood vessel system has been produced. The remarkable accomplishments are achieved by revealing an unexplored regime in the interaction of ultrafast laser pulses with fused silica, which gives rise to depth-insensitive focusing of the laser pulses and polarization-independent selective etching inside fused silica. We examine the difference in the plasma dynamics between interactions of picosecond and femtosecond laser pulses with fused silica glass.
Three-dimensional (3D) microfluidic structures provide new opportunities for developing novel functional lab-on-a-chip devices. In the past decade, the femtosecond laser direct writing has been developed to become a unique and powerful technology for straightforward fabrication of 3D microfluidic structures in glass. Herein we overview our efforts on femtosecond laser fabrication of three-dimensional microfluidic structures in glass and their lab-on-a-chip applications such as the creation of high-complexity of microfluidic devices and functionalization of microchannels.
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