Testimonial of Damien Coudreuse, from Synthecell Laboratory, about our UV-LED masker UV-KUB 2 and our mask aligner UV-KUB 3

Our team investigates the mechanisms that control the proliferation of living cells. We use microfabrication techniques to build microfluidic chips that allow for the high resolution live-cell imaging of yeast cells while manipulating their environment in real time.

The small size of the cells we study requires microdesigns at the micrometer scale. For this, we have taken advantage of the UV KUB 2 and the UV KUB 3 mask aligner.

Our KUB 2 was initially the machine of choice for routinely fabricating single-layer microfluidic networks, with the KUB 3 being reserved for more complex multi-layered designs.

However, the KUB 3 eventually became the machine that is utilised the most, regardless of the type of microdevice we produce. For our applications, we found it to perform exactly to our expectations, while being much simpler to use and significantly cheaper than traditional mask aligners.

In addition, neither of our two systems requires particular maintenance, and they have proven to be very robust: we have never had to get them repaired.

Beyond the quality of the photolithography, one of the key advantages of the KUB 3 for a biology lab is the fact that with only a short training session, all team members, from undergraduate students to post-doctoral fellows, can use it autonomously with excellent results.

We were one of the first teams in France to acquire the UV KUB 3 when it first became available, and the system remains at the center of our microfabrication setup.