I've been reading papers on microfluidics but only the soft litographic fabrication process is given in the papers. I want to know how the microfluidics are designed using cam/cad software and which softwares are suitable for this purpose? I also want to know if there is a unic mask or it changes with the purpose?
Any designing software is fine, AutoCad, lay out editor.
For simpler design, a power point design can be printed on a transparency, which can be used as mask !!
Pratik Shah could u also give some information about the printer which can i use for the mask printing? Which printers are available for this purpose?
You should be able to use any design software from AutoCAD to Inkscape. There may be some limitations when it comes to printing though, e.g. some mask printing companies (for metal masks) require layered drawings to define the nesting of clear and dark areas. If you are planning to print to film, you'll need to know the printing resolution of the output device and make sure that you don't make any structures smaller than about 5 times the output devices resolution. You'll notice that aliasing errors are problematic in small array structures that are close to the output devices resolution. You also need to use very high contrast film if you intend to use SU-8 for your positive relief casting master.
If you don't need high resolution (
If you are interested in free software you can have a look at DraftSight and FreeCAD for instance. AutoCAD is the most popular. So if you use it you'll it will be much easier to find solutions online to the problems you may face when making your masks.
Burak,
From my experince, any inkjet printer gave better contrast than laser jet printer.
It can be any inkjet printer (normal printer), higher dots per inch resolution gives you more precise and high resolution images.
Usually, this is good when you don't need high resolution approx. (>200 micron)
Let me know if I can help you with anything else
Thank you all for the detailed answers. I wanna design microchannels for micropatterning and I ll consider your suggestions.
I highly recommend Layout Editor - it's software specifically designed for photomask production, and has heaps of individually addressable keyboard shortcuts to make design really quick and easy! Go to http://www.layouteditor.net/ to download.
You can use any CAD software that uses vectors. Specialized are: L-edit and layout editor; more comercial ones: AutoCAD, Corel Draw, Illustrator and; Open Software: Open Office and FreeCAD.
But you should double check in your mask writer, what is the format it can read. Usually the writers read DXF, CIF and Gerber. So just make sure you can export your mask into whatever format you need them for printing.
For single layer microfluidic devices (rapid prototyping) you can even spin coat a wafer and then write it directly with the mask writer. In this case you'll save some time and a mask. However if you need to create many masters, standard lithography is faster.
Anish Shenoy, in which format do you export your Illustrator file ? Because, here, I can only save it in .svg, .eps, .ai, .pdf, but I can't export it in .dxf for example.
Thanks
http://layouteditor.net/
Layout editor from the german company Juspertor
can be used for ASIC, MEMS and mask
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