Hello, I have laser cut PMMA layers to build a microfluidic chip (CO2 Laser), but the roughness is quite high. I need some ways to polish the square organoid chamber of the layer, which has an area of 2.4mm^2, for better microscopy. I have tried vapor polishing the chamber with chloroform, but the surface should already have some smoothness for it to work, so I am currently polishing the chamber manually with acrylic paste before vapor depositing. Does anyone know of an alternative to reduce the roughness of such small surfaces?
I think these links may be useful for you
Article Surface roughness analysis and improvement of PMMA-based mic...
Article Reduction of surface roughness for optical quality microflui...
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Surface-roughness-analysis-and-improvement-of-chip-Huang-Liu/79306f95194e2d4685d962c624fdf608eea5a99d
Thank you Prof., I saw these papers already and will take a closer look at them.
the chambers of the polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA)-based microfluidic chip were fabricated by CO2 laser cutting, and then the surface roughness of the sections cut using different laser parameters and ambient temperature was studied by a non-contact 3D surface profiler. Our observation shows that the surface roughness results primarily from the residues on the laser-cut edge, which are produced by the bubbles bursting. To reduce the surface roughness of the cut section, a new approach is proposed, that is preheating the PMMA sheet to a suitable ambient temperature during laser processing. The results indicate that at a preheat temperature of 70–90 °C, the surface roughness resulting from the cut would be reduced. In our experiment, the best result was that the arithmetical mean roughness is Ra = 100.86 nm when the PMMA sheet was heated to 85 °C.
Thank you Dr. Safwan al-qawabah , this article indeed had an idea to use directly on the laser machine.
If you’re looking for a biocompatible material that combines the best of thermoplastics and PDMS, I suggest you check the Flexdym polymer. It is ideal for cell culture applications, and has a quick and easy protocol: www.eden-microfluidics.com
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