RSC Publishing


Publishing

 

Cover image for Lab on a Chip, select for current issue

Lab on a Chip

Microfluidic & nanofluidic technologies for chemistry, physics, biology, and bioengineering



Subscribers

Non-subscribers

Free access



Paper

Lab Chip, 2008, 8, 402 - 407, DOI: 10.1039/b716382g

Rapid sacrificial layer etching for the fabrication of nanochannels with integrated metal electrodes

Wouter Sparreboom, Jan C. T. Eijkel, Johan Bomer and Albert van den Berg

We present a rapid etch method to surface-micromachine nanochannels with integrated noble metal electrodes using a single metal sacrificial layer. The method is based on the galvanic coupling of a chromium sacrificial layer with gold electrodes, which results in a 10-fold increase in etch rate with respect to conventional single metal etching. The etch process is investigated and characterized by optical and electrochemical measurements, leading to a theoretical explanation of the observed etch rate based on mass transport. Using this explanation we derive some generic design rules for nanochannel fabrication employing sacrificial metal etching.

Graphical abstract image for this article (ID: b716382g)