Rapid and Low-Cost Fabrication of Microfluidic Devices Using Liquid Crystal Display-Based 3D Printing

Abstract Microfluidic devices have been widely investigated for various applications, specifically in the biomedical field, which involve manipulating cells at a sub-micron scale. However, the conventional lithography process with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) micro-molding process (soft lithography) involves numerous steps demanding high-end equipment and a cleanroom fueling up the cost and making it a time-consuming process. This paper presents a low-cost yet versatile way to fabricate long microfluidic channels using liquid crystal display (LCD)-based vat photopolymerization 3D printing. The accuracy, resolution and repeatability of the printing process were characterized using various parameter settings. We validated the developed process by 3D-printing four different microfluidic devices with 100 μm wide channels. Subsequently, we successfully demonstrated the formation of a single streamline of breast cancer cells in a microchannel with long and smooth edges. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) characterization shows a high-quality fabricated channel. This proposed approach aligns with the ongoing efforts toward a versatile, flexible, and fast option for producing the diagnostic device.