Chemical & Engineering News has a cute little article explaining how a new professor began using Shrinky Dinks to make molds for microfluidic devices. Apparently, the usual photolithography rigs are expensive, and take time to set up. But it turns out that it is possible to print a pattern on a sheet of Shrinky-Dink thermoplastic, using an ordinary laser printer. In some cases, the results are better than what was obtained using conventional means.
The shrunken Shrinky Dinks replace commonly used silicon wafer molds, which must be made by photolithographic patterning ... The thermoplastic molds are faster and cheaper to make than are ones made with standard photolithography.
Comments
I'm sure Alton Brown would approve of this. Any tool that can't be used in more than one way isn't a tool that should make it into ones collection.
Posted by: Tony P | November 29, 2007 3:22 PM