SURVEY ON THE 3D PRINTING CAPABILITY OF COMMERCIAL DIGITAL LIGHT PROCESSING PRINTERS APPLIED TO MICROFLUIDIC MOLD FABRICATION

Abstract

Traditional fabrication of microfluidic devices based on photolithography requires high costs and a cleanroom environment, which significantly limits its accessibility. Recently, low-cost 3D printing using digital light processing has emerged as a promising alternative that is easy to operate and does not require sophisticated infrastructure. However, applying 3D digital light processing printer for microfluidic mold fabrication necessitates careful optimization of parameters to achieve high feature fidelity and dimensional accuracy. In this study, we systematically investigated the printing capabilities of the commercial Anycubic Photon Mono 4 3D printer using digital light processing to fabricate microfluidic molds. Our results showed that features ≥ 200 µm could be successfully produced with optimized exposure time and spacing. Increasing the sample thickness to ≥ 3 mm and incorporating reinforcement walls ≥ 3 mm in height effectively eliminated warpage. Other parameters, such as layer thickness, platform lifting speed, washing time, and post-curing duration, had negligible effects on the printed part quality. Under these optimized conditions, a microfluidic mold containing 400 µm microwells was successfully fabricated and applied to 3D spheroid cell culture. This work demonstrates the significant potential of low-cost 3D printing in fabricating molds for biomedical research.