Fabrication of nickel molds using proton beam writing for micro/nano fluidic devices

In this paper, we present the fabrication of micro/nano fluidic devices with the combination of proton beam writing and UV lithography. Proton beam writing was used to generate the fine features with smooth sidewall profiles on ma-N resist, 110 and 600 nm thick. UV lithography is used to fabricate the micron sized feeding channels properly aligned with the nanostructures on ma-P resist. To get a durable mold, we need to transfer the resist structure into a nickel mold. Nickel electroplating and re-electroplating have been carried out to replicate the polymer structure in a nickel mold with the desired geometry, resulting in a durable Ni master mold. Finally it is demonstrated that these Ni molds can be used to make high quality PDMS fluidic channels used for DNA lab on chip experiments.