Lab-on-chip technologies: making a microfluidic network and coupling it into a complete microsystem—a review

Microfluidics is an emerging field that has given rise to a large number of scientific and technological developments over the last few years. This review reports on the use of various materials, such as silicon, glass and polymers, and their related technologies for the manufacturing of simple microchannels and complex systems. It also presents the main application fields concerned with the different technologies and the most significant results reported by academic and industrial teams. Finally, it demonstrates the advantage of developing approaches for associating polymer technologies for manufacturing of fluidic elements with integration of active or sensitive elements, particularly silicon devices.