Manufacturing Microfluidic Chips: Micro Milling Approach

Microfluidics are an important technology for the biomedical industry and often utilised in our daily lives. To facilitate the development of this technology, micromilling is proposed as an alternative method to conventional photo-lithography for fabricating microfluidic chips. There remains uncertainty around what the ideal milling practices are and it is therefore important to investigate the milling process as well as the optimal parameters. It is determined that the highest quality surface can be obtained at 60,000 RPM spindle speed with a 200 mm/min feed rate for PMMA, a common microfludic material. Robust data was used to verify this relationship. Recommendations are made to further refine the milling process to improve surface quality, including an example of a potential final product.