Picosecond Laser Etching of Glass Spiral Microfluidic Channel for Microparticles Dispersion and Sorting

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is generally good, but the authors did not avoid small mistakes.

There should be no millimeters of up to 3 power in line 107.

In line 120 you can add a laser device manufacturer.

In line 122, you can reward the sentence by replacing the words path and strategy for scanning trajectories - but this is only my suggestion.

Lines 141 to 149 contain an enigmatic description of how to eliminate the lens correction error relative to the workpiece from which the reader may incorrectly deduce the purposefulness of this procedure - for me it should be more accurately described for what it is done for and when it is required. You can also write that such an operation has been done and a person who knows things will know what's going on.

I don't understand what the letter S in line 194 means - it's probably a mistake.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript Number: micromachines-3390709

Recommendation: Minor Revision

Comments:

In this paper, the authors present a method for dispersing and sorting microparticles by fabricating spiral microfluidic channels on a glass substrate and optimizing the machining conditions. The manuscript is well-written and provides a promising technique for microparticle sorting, which has potential applications in both biological and chemical fields. However, several points require further clarification and revision:

 

1.         Does the size and number of microcolumns affect the sorting performance? It would be helpful to provide more detailed analysis or data on how these variables influence the sorting efficiency and accuracy.

2.         Some figures, such as Fig. 16 and Fig. 18, are missing captions. Please include comprehensive captions for all figures to ensure clarity and proper context for the reader.

3.         Is there any method available to quantify the sorting efficiency of cells in Collection 1 and Collection 2? Additionally, could the authors provide an estimate of the sorting time? This would offer valuable insight into the operational efficiency of the sorting process.

4.         How were the depth and roughness of the microfluidic channels measured? A brief description of the techniques or instruments used for this characterization would enhance the transparency of the fabrication process.

5.         The study analyzes the sorting of two different sizes of particles. Would the etching and optimization process need to be repeated for particles of other sizes? It would be beneficial to discuss whether the method can be generalized to particles with varying sizes or if additional optimization steps are required for different particle types.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx