Micro Injection-Molding of Cyclic Olefin Copolymer Using Metallic Glass Insert

Abstract

There is shift in trend towards the use of high quality polymers as the base material in manufacturing microfluidic chips. In this paper, an amorphous metallic alloy mold insert was used in a micro injection-molding process to fabricate microfluidic features onto cyclic-olefin-copolymer (COC) material. The insert and fabricated samples were compared in terms of the geometry and surface roughness attained. Findings indicate that replication, in general, was possible but the microfeatures formed had significant flashing and tearing at the edges.