A Review of Current Methods in Microfluidic Device Fabrication and Future Commercialization Prospects

Abstract

Microfluidic devices currently play an important role in many biological, chemical, and engineering applications, and there are many ways to fabricate the necessary channel and feature dimensions. In this review, we provide an overview of microfabrication techniques that are relevant to both research and commercial use. A special emphasis on both the most practical and the recently developed methods for microfluidic device fabrication is applied, and it leads us to specifically address laminate, molding, 3D printing, and high resolution nanofabrication techniques. The methods are compared for their relative costs and benefits, with special attention paid to the commercialization prospects of the various technologies.

Keywords

• microfabrication
• nanofabrication
• microfluidics
• nanofluidics
• 3D printing
• laminates
• molding