Hello! I am a graduate researcher and I have been making microfluidic devices with PDMS and glass slides for several months now. I am comfortable with the process documents my lab typically uses, but not enough to write my own processes. Originally, we have been using a Harrick Plasma chamber to perform plasma bonding, and this has been going somewhat successfully. The vacuum pump attached to the plasma chamber has been having trouble, so while it is being repaired I have been trying to perform the same process with a Technics Micro-RIE Series 800 system. Apparently, the bonding process should be possible with this device, but I have followed several procedures found online with no success.

- Would retrying the process with the same samples result in the bonding being more challenging? I was not replacing my samples between trials as I was just trying to find anything that would work.

- How does one tell whether the bonding chamber is too dirty, and how do you clean out contaminants from these devices?

- One of the biggest differences I see from process to process is the exposure time. Some go as low as 5 seconds while others go up to 1-2 minutes. Would bonding be more succesful at a shorter exposure time?

Thank you for any help!