Advances in device technology have been accompanied by the development of new types of materials and device fabrication methods. Considering device design, initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) inspires innovation as a platform technology that extends the application range of a material or device. iCVD serves as a versatile tool for surface modification using functional thin film. The building of polymeric thin films from vapor phase monomers is highly desirable for the surface modification of thermally sensitive substrates. The precise control of thin film thicknesses can be achieved using iCVD, creating a conformal coating on nano-, and microstructured substrates such as membranes and microfluidics. iCVD allows for the deposition of polymer thin films of high chemical functionality, and thus, substrate surfaces can be functionalized directly from the iCVD polymer film or can selectively gain functionality through chemical reactions between functional groups on the substrate and other reactive molecules. These beneficial aspects of iCVD can spur breakthroughs in device fabrication based on the deposition of robust and functional polymer thin films. This review describes significant implications of and recent progress made in iCVD-based technologies in three fields: electronic devices, surface engineering, and biomedical applications.
This work describes fully automated and colorimetric foodborne pathogen detection on an integrated centrifugal microfluidic device, which is called a lab-on-a-disc. All the processes for molecular diagnostics including DNA extraction and purification, DNA amplification and amplicon detection were integrated on a single disc. Silica microbeads incorporated in the disc enabled extraction and purification of bacterial genomic DNA from bacteria-contaminated milk samples. We targeted four kinds of foodborne pathogens (Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella typhimurium, Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Listeria monocytogenes) and performed loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) to amplify the specific genes of the targets. Colorimetric detection mediated by a metal indicator confirmed the results of the LAMP reactions with the colour change of the LAMP mixtures from purple to sky blue. The whole process was conducted in an automated manner using the lab-on-a-disc and a miniaturized rotary instrument equipped with three heating blocks. We demonstrated that a milk sample contaminated with foodborne pathogens can be automatically analysed on the centrifugal disc even at the 10 bacterial cell level in 65 min. The simplicity and portability of the proposed microdevice would provide an advanced platform for point-of-care diagnostics of foodborne pathogens, where prompt confirmation of food quality is needed.
A novel centrifugal microdevice which could perform reverse transcriptase loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) and immunochromatographic strip (ICS) based amplicon detection was demonstrated for simple and cost-effective influenza A virus identification. The proposed centrifugal microdevice consists of the sample and running buffer loading reservoirs, the RT-LAMP chamber, and the ICS for detecting gene expression. The entire process could be completed sequentially and automatically by simply controlling the rotation speed and by optimizing the microfluidic design. Monoplex and multiplex RT-LAMP reactions targeting H1 and/or M gene were executed at 66 °C for 40 min, and the resultant amplicons were successfully analysed on the ICS within 15 min. Influenza A H1N1 virus was subtyped by detecting H1 and M gene on the ICS even with 10 copies of viral RNAs. Highly specific and multiplex viral typing of the integrated RT-LAMP-ICS microdevice was also demonstrated. The combination of the rapid isothermal amplification with the simple colorimetric detection on a strip in a single centrifugal microdevice will provide an advanced genetic analysis platform in the field of on-site pathogen diagnostics.
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