Reversible, Room Temperature Bonding of Glass Devices for Microfluidics

This chapter describes a procedure for bonding glass microdevice substrates to their top plates by contact alone. This method results in devices that are robustly bonded but that can be separated, cleaned, and reused. For glass chips that have been used for applications involving the transport of hard particles, cells, or other biological material, reversible bonding provides a way of increasing the chip’s lifetime and utility. Glass microdevices that are cleaned following this procedure can be successfully used many times for electrophoresis or pressure-driven applications.