Current and Emerging Microfabrication Techniques for Lab-on-a-Chip and Biomedical Microdevices: From Photolithography to 3D Printing

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past three decades, microfabrication and microfluidic technologies have experienced remarkable advancements and had a broad range of applications, including in vitro diagnostics, drug delivery, infectious diseases, and numerous other fields. The fabrication of microfluidic devices has benefited from well-established semiconductor microfabrication technology for creating planar miniaturized features with unprecedented high precision and high-throughput capabilities. These “flat” microfluidic devices enable the handling of minute amounts of fluids, as low as a few picoliters, in a network of microchannels, as well as the manipulation of various biochemical reactions at very small volumes. Since its introduction by George Whitesides in 1998, soft lithography, particularly in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), became the dominant fabrication technique for lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices. Soft lithography offers a straightforward and efficient process, paving the way for its widespread adoption across academia and research labs. However, these fabrication techniques still lack standards that govern possible mass production. Various emerging fabrication techniques, such as molding, 3D printing, and nanofabrication, have shown promise in overcoming the limitations of traditional soft lithography in terms of versatility, scalability, and the ability to work with a wider range of materials and geometries (e.g., 3D structures).

We are delighted to announce this Special Issue, which intends to include the most relevant research in microfluidic/biomedical microdevice fabrication, from state-of-the-art contributions to critical reviews on the topic that will highlight recent progress in this field. 

Dr. Qasem Ramadan
Guest Editor

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