Mass-manufacturing methods for opto-fluidic structures

Mass-production of photonics and fluidics often rely on different replication methods, such as thermal or UV-embossing of polymers. Depending on the expected production volume, either sheet-level or roll-to-roll processes can be used to fabricate required structures for opto-fluidic microsystems. While processing by sheets is preferred in research phase and in small to medium volume products, roll-to-roll fabrication is attractive in high volume production. In this work, we evaluate the dimensional resolution that is obtainable with various materials and production methods. As well, the integration of photonics and fluidics is an integral part of the production. As an example case, it was shown that mass-produced SERS surfaces with sub-micrometer feature sizes can be further integrated with microfluidic circuit to produce polymeric opto-fluidic microsystems for sensing applications.