Latest Developments in Micro Total Analysis Systems

Abstract

The field of micro total analysis systems (µTAS) (1) or lab on a chip (LOC) has extended its usefulness into many new fields and disciplines spanning basic research to commercial applications. The importance of µTAS is reflected in both the growing number and improved quality of published articles. µTAS has expanded into an incredibly diverse number of analytical chemistry applications and has received a great amount of input from a wide spectrum of scientific and engineering disciplines. In this sense, µTAS is highly interdisciplinary and has served as a focal point to bring together multidisciplinary research fields.This work builds on former reviews (2-6) and attempts to chart the most recent developments in µTAS. By cross referencing online keyword searches, several thousand articles were found spread among a wide variety of journals but were most frequently found in the high impact journals such as Science, Nature, PNAS, Analytical Chemistry, Lab on a Chip, and others. The annual international µTAS conference also provided articles on some of the very latest and most promising developments. This review article aims to report the latest achievements in the field of µTAS by highlighting some of the very best research papers published over the 2 year period between March 2008 and February 2010. Our main goal is to give a broad overview of the latest state-ofthe-art research and to introduce newcomers to the field. We were overwhelmed by the large number of research papers published on cellular analysis, manipulation, and droplet fluidics; therefore, we divided the review into two parts. This first part concentrates on reports related to manufacturing, technology, and instrumentation for molecular analysis, and part two covers applications related to cellular analysis and manipulation, which is referred to as cellson-a-chip (460). The papers we selected on droplet fluidics are distributed throughout both parts of the article according to their applications. We attempted to select papers based on the merit of their contents, which was a difficult task, and we have missed some good articles; for these oversights, we offer our apology in advance.Since this review focuses on novel developments of microfluidic systems for applied analytical chemical applications, publications about sensor arrays (so-called "biochips"), chemical synthesis on microchips (except some papers on particle synthesis using droplets), theory, and simulations, as well as trend articles, have been omitted. Furthermore, we reduced the technology section, as the majority of work is carried out by employing simple planar microchips fabricated in glass or polymers such as silicone elastomers. TECHNOLOGYMicrofabrication. Conventional Microfabrication. Many new innovative approaches have been reported in the field of microfabrication. Semicircular cross section channels network microfabricated on a silicon chip by XeF 2 etching by Camp et al. (7). These channels allow stress free transportation of cells. Generally, vapor deposited thin film metal ele...

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