Rapid Fabrication of Multilayer Microfluidic Devices Using the Liquid Crystal Display-Based Stereolithography 3D Printing System

We present a generalized process to characterize a 3D printer for fabrication of microfluidic devices. With this process, researchers are able to determine the capability of SLA printers for a specific resin. We employed a liquid crystal display (LCD)-based SLA 3D printer to demonstrate the feasibility of the process and applied optimized parameters for fabricating multilayer 3D microfluidic devices. It has been found that the LCD-based SLA 3D printer can support fabrication of microfluidic devices with the features down to 400 μm for in-plane features and 800 μm for vertical and interconnection features. The optimized curing time of the 100-μm-thick layer is 5.5, 6.5, and 7.5 s for yellow, light green, and dark green resins, respectively. The 3D printed flow-focusing droplet generator worked properly and could generate droplets with sizes between 50 and 185 mm2. Taken together, the presented strategy can be used to quantitatively analyze and understand the capabilities of SLA 3D printing systems, which greatly facilitate optimization of device design and fabrication processes.