Experimental investigation of new manufacturing process chains to create micro-metal structures on polymer substrates for lab-on-chip sensors

Over the last two decades, lab-on-a-chip devices have emerged as a leading technology for life sciences, drug development, medical diagnostics, food safety, agricultural and environmental monitoring. The conventional methods used nowadays to manufacture these micro- and nano-functional surface topography are very expensive, and they do not fit the requirements for industrial production. In particular, we report an experimental investigation to link technologies as structuring process and replication processes by establishing through the proposed low-cost-based approaches new manufacturing process chains to process non-silicon materials devices, which integrate sub-μ periodic structures. Moreover, we introduce a prototype of new testing equipment working in a non-clean environment based on photolithographic procedures. μ-trenches with feature size in the order of 10 μm are integrated on cyclic olefin co-polymer substrates. The achievements authorize to consider the proposed process chain a valid option to fabricate structured surface topography in the sub-μ range for biological applications.