Block Copolymers and Nanosphere Lithography as a Bottom-up Fabrication Tool for Facilitating Deterministic Lateral Displacement

honors thesisCollege of EngineeringChemical EngineeringDr. Roseanne WarrenWith the capability to separate red blood cells and exosomes, deterministic lateral deisplacement (DLD) has established itself as a great utility in biological sparation applications on both the microscale and nonoscale. Current methods of employing DLD on the nonoscale require electron beam lithography and top-down fabriction methodologies. An alternative bottom-up approach for fabricating DLD-capable particle separation arrays is proposed through the use of block copolymers (BCs) and nanosphere lithography (NSL). A thorough literature review on DLD, BCs, and NSL is conducted to identify potential crossovers between these fields, and design plans for fabricating DLD-capable arrays throught the use of BCs and NSL are subesquently developed. However, fabrication plans us;ing BCs were not implemented due to budget and design limitations. Fabrication of NSL-created DLD arrays is employed in an effort to obtain an empirical validation of theoretical results, though existing limitations in NSL prevent the successful fabrication of DLD-capable arrays. Nonetheless, the development of a DLD fabrication process using NSL methodologies is translated into a full student lab course for students enrolled in ME EN 5050: Micromachining, resulting in the creation of 8 separate 3-hour labs. This enables the future characterization of these novel micro and nanoscale patterning techniques as they pertain to forming DLD-capable microfluidic arrays while simultaneosly exposing students to a diverse set of micromachining techniques through the fabrication process