Laser processing of components for polymer microfluidic and optoelectronic products

Miniaturisation is one of the keywords for the production of customer oriented and highly integrated consumer products like mobile phones, portables and other products from the daily life and there are some first silicon made products like pressure sensors, acceleration sensors and micro fluidic components, which are built in automobiles, washing machines and medical products. However, not all applications can be covered with this material, because of the limitations in lateral and 3-dimensional structuring, the mechanical behaviour, the functionality and the costs of silicon. Therefore other materials, like polymers have been selected as suitable candidates for cost effective mass products. This holds especially for medical and optical applications, where the properties of selected polymers, like biocompatibility, inert chemical behaviour and high transparency can be used. For this material laser micro processing offers appropriate solutions for structuring as well as for packaging with high flexibility, material variety, structure size, processing speed and easy integration into existing fabrication plants. The paper presents recent results and industrial applications of laser micro processing for polymer micro fluidic devices, like micro analysis systems, micro reactors and medical micro implants, where excimer radiation is used for lateral structuring and diode lasers have used for joining and packaging. Similar technologies have been applied to polymer waveguides to produce passive optoelectronic components for high speed interconnection with surface roughness < 20 nm and low attenuation. The paper also reviews the technical and economical limitations and the potential of the technology for other micro products.