MICROFLUIDICS FOR CONTROLLED PRODUCTION OF THIN FILMS AND PARTICLES

Tailored materials with nano to micron dimensions are becoming increasingly important for niche applications in optics, personnel protection and biomedicine. Microfluidics is a robust platform for producing these tailored materials because of the spatial control that can be realized in microfluidic systems due to laminar flow profiles and small dimensions. For this work, a pre-polymer solution, consisting of water, polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) and a photo-initiator, flows through a microfluidic channel. For the general scheme, the pre-polymer is exposed to UV light in the microfluidic channel to crosslink the polymer. Depending on the application, the model pre-polymer, PEGDA, may need to be substituted with a different photo-polymerizable pre-polymer to address issues such as chemical compatibility and moisture stability prior to commercialization. Nonetheless, proof-of-concept is demonstrated using PEGDA with results that are transferrable to other photo-polymerizable pre-polymers. For this work, two distinct applications will be presented. In one application, the pre-polymer has a graded profile of nanoparticles. The nanoparticles modify the refractive index of the heterogeneous material and allow light to be directed through the material according to Snell s Law. When the pre-polymer solution is polymerized, a thin film with a controlled refractive index profile is produced with potential for waveguiding applications. In a second application, the light is masked during UV exposure to produce particles instead of thin films. The particles can be of any two-dimensional extruded shape. If the pre-polymer solution is loaded with ceramic nanoparticles and sintered, ceramic particles that retain the shape of the original composite particle are produced. To date, numerous particle cross sections of polymeric particles and limited ceramic particles have been demonstrated with applications in liquid body armor, abrasives and drug delivery.