Hydrogel coating on soft polymeric substrates for microfluidic devices

In microfabricated MEMS actuator, sensor and biomedical devices, soft polymeric materials like PDMS are widely used for lightweight, low cost, high corrosion resistance, high flexibility and high dimensional stability. Along with their numerous beneficial functions these materials have some shortcomings during real application for their hydrophobic high frictional surface and stiction. In this work we have developed a facile way of hydrogel coating on PDMS substrate by highly hydrophilic hydrogels N,N, dimethylacrylamide as a monomer. This gel is highly hydrophilic in nature having biocompatibility and shows very low friction coefficient value in wet condition. Frictional property, wettability and the surface morphology were studied and comparison between coated and uncoated surface has been made to understand the coating phenomenon clearly.