The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 23, 2012
Filed:
Mar. 06, 2009
Donald Lad Devoe, Bethesda, MD (US);
Chia-wen Tsao, Columbia, MD (US);
Donald Lad DeVoe, Bethesda, MD (US);
Chia-Wen Tsao, Columbia, MD (US);
University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD (US);
Abstract
The present invention relates to a method for bonding two surfaces to one another. The invention particularly pertains to the use of such method in which one of the surfaces is a polymeric plastic (and more preferably a polymeric thermoplastic (especially poly-(methyl methacrylate) ('PMMA') or cyclic olefin copolymer ('COC')). More particularly, the invention relates to treating at least one of the contacting surfaces with UV in the presence of oxygen to thereby generate ozone (O) and atomic oxygen under conditions of temperature below that of the glass transition temperature of the polymeric plastic. The UV/O-mediated bonding results in high bond strength and zero-deformation method. This bonding method can be applied to micro/nano-scale polymer devices, and particularly to microfluidic devices, for a low cost, high throughput, high yield advantage.