Fabrication of Liquid-Core Waveguides by Soft Lithography

Liquid-core waveguides have the useful characteristic that the optical properties of the waveguides can be tailored by controlling the optical properties of the fluid in the core. This paper illustrates the use of soft-lithographic techniques to fabricate arrays of liquid-core waveguides by molding an organic polymer into a bas-relief structure and subsequently sealing this structure against a flat surface. The demonstrated ease of fabrication—combining soft lithography and rapid prototyping—may open the way for the fabrication of various optical devices based on microfluidic systems.