Simulation and fabrication of integrated polystyrene microlens in microfluidic system

This paper presents a simple and quick method to integrate microlens with the microfluidics systems. The polystyrene (PS) based microlens is fabricated with the free surface thermal compression molding methods, a thin PS sheet with the microlens is bonded to a PMMA substrate which contains the laser ablated microchannels. The convex profiler of the microlens will give a magnified images of the microchannels for easier observation. Optical simulation software is being used for the design and simulation of the microlens to have optimal optical performance with the desired focal length. A microfluidic system with the integrated PS microlens is also fabricated for demonstration.