Fabrication of biopolymer cantilevers

With our novel production method biopolymer micro cantilevers can be manufactured cheap and easily, rendering the measurement of degradability a matter of a few days. Our micro cantilevers are made of the PLLA (poly-l-lactide), measure 100 x 500 x 10 µm (width, length, height) but are positioned on a supporting body chip to allow handling with tweezers. As biopolymers are to fragile to process with standard silicon techniques we developed a fabrication method using nanoimprint lithography, where the chip structure is defined by pressing a stamp into the biopolymer layer. This has previously only been done with ordinary plastics. The degradation is then evaluated by placing the chip in a solution and measuring its resonance frequency, which depend on the cantilever mass. As proof of concept this measurement was also performed.