Fully Polymer-Based Robot-Integrated Microfluidic Chip for Mechanical Characterization of Single Particles

Mechanical characterization of microparticle using robot-integrated microfluidic chips enable high-throughput measurement in flow cytometry environment. However, it is difficult and costly to fabricate the previous microfluidic chips with a complex layered structure of glass-silicon-glass. Therefore, we propose a fully polymer-based robot-integrated microfluidic chip made of COP-PI-COP (COP: cyclo-olefin polymer, PI: polyimide) which is made by a simple fabrication process with low cost. In our experiments, we achieved the actuation of integrated polymer beams with a spring constant of 0.18 N/m, a displacement of 72 µm, and a frequency of ~10 Hz. Finally, we demonstrated the mechanical characterization of the hydrogel beads.