Low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) process combined with thick film photolithography was employed to fabricate ceramic-based microfluidic devices. To check the applicability of novel process, three types of passive mixers, diffusion-driven T-type mixers with different channel width and convection-driven chaotic mixer, were fabricated and their microfluidic performance was evaluated. It was confirmed that the degree of mixing in ceramic-based microfluidic passive mixers was well matched with the numerical simulation data.

Microfluidic device can be applied in a wide range of chemical and biological technology. In this paper, ceramic-based T-type passive mixers for microfluidic applications were fabricated by LTCC process combined with thick film photolithography. The base ceramic material in thick film was amorphous cordierite ((Mg,Ca)₂Al₄Si?O 18 ) and photoimageable polymers were added to give a photosensitivity. Two types of passive mixer, which showed the channel width of 1.0 mm and 200 μm, respectively, were designed considering mixing efficiency in the channel and their microfluidic properties were discussed in detail.