Printed circuit boards as platform for disposable lab-on-a-chip applications

Abstract

An increasing demand in performance from electronic devices has resulted in continuous shrinking of electronic components. This shrinkage has demanded that the primary integration platform, the printed circuit board (PCB), follow this same trend. Today, PCB companies offer ~100 micron sized features (depth and width) which mean they are becoming suitable as physical platforms for Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) and microfluidic applications. Compared to current lithographic based fluidic approaches; PCB technology offers several advantages that are useful for this technology. These include: Being easily designed and changed using free software, robust structures that can often be reused, chip layouts that can be ordered from commercial PCB suppliers at very low cost (1 AUD each in this work), and integration of electrodes at no additional cost. Here we present the application of PCB technology in connection with microfluidics for several biomedical applications. In case of commercialization the costs for each device can be even further decreased to approximately one tenth of its current cost.