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The UV-nanoimprint lithography(UV-NIL) fabrication of a novel network of micron-sized channels, forming an open channel microfluidic system is described. Details about the complete manufacturing process, from mastering to fabrication in small batches and in high throughput with up to 1200 micro titer plates per hour is presented. Deep insight into the evaluation of a suitable UV-curable material, mr-UVCur26SF is given, presenting cytotoxic evaluation, cell compatibility tests and finally a neuronal assay. The results indicate how the given pattern, in combination with the resist, paves the way to faster, cheaper, and more reliable drug screening. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement NO. 646260. The research was also partially supported by NextGenMicrofluidics project under HORIZON2020 with grant agreement no 862092.

Hybrid polymers constitute a class of optical materials combining properties of inorganic glass and organic polymers. The flexible synthesis and processing allows for specific tailoring of their properties as required for the fabrication of high-performance and reliable microoptical elements. While wafer-scale fabrication of microoptics using hybrid polymers is widely used in an industrial environment, they gain ever-increasing attention in additive manufacturing and 3D printing technologies. This chapter introduces the chemical concepts behind hybrid polymers, discusses their synthesis and processing, and gives a record on their application for the fabrication of microoptical and photonic elements using established wafer-scale as well as emerging additive manufacturing processes, in particular inkjet printing and two-photon polymerization direct laser writing.

We propose novel additive manufacturing processes to cost-effectively generate prototypes and small batches of hybrid micro-optical components. We combine UV-molding with inkjet printing techniques using the polymer inks InkOrmo and InkEpo designated for permanent optical applications. This enables the integration of diffractive and refractive optical elements into one monolithic micro-component and thus the implementation of tailor-made optical designs. Finally, the proposed processes allow a high versatile fabrication making individual micro-optics easily accessible.

A novel manufacturing chain to cost-effectively generate prototypes of hybrid micro-optical components is proposed. UV-molding and inkjet printing techniques are combined with the optical polymer inks InkOrmo and InkEpo for easily implementing tailor-made optical designs.

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is one of the most promising technology platforms for replication of nanometer and micrometer scale 3D topographies with extremely high resolution and throughput, as needed for e.g. photonic or optical applications. One of the remaining challenges of 3D NIL, however, is the fabrication of high quality 3D master originals – the initial patterns that are replicated multiple times in the NIL process. Here, we demonstrate a joint solution for 3D NIL where NanoFrazor thermal scanning probe lithography (t-SPL) is used to pattern the master templates with singlenanometer accurate 3D topographies. 3D topographies from polymer resist master templates are replicated using a HERCULES NIL system with SmartNIL technology. Furthermore, 3D patterns are transferred from the resist into a silicon substrate via reactive ion etching (RIE) and the resulting silicon master template is used for producing polymeric working stamps into OrmoStamp and, finally, replicas into optical grade OrmoClearFX material. Both replication strategies result in very high-quality replicas of the original patterns.