The fabrication technology uses large-area, double-sided plasma etching of polymers (polyimide, LCP, PET, PC, COC, etc.) in order to generate microfluidic channels systems. Depending on the size of the actual microfluidic chip design, hundreds or thousands of individual substrates can be manufactured on one standard fabrication panel. Gold microelectrodes down to a feature size of 25 microns can be generated, and other special surfaces are possible when required by the final application (e.g. Ag/AgCl reference electrodes). The technology is also extendable to multi-level microfluidic systems with inlets/outlets and fluidic interconnect between the channel systems, as in the dual-channel electrospray tips produced for DIAGNOSWISS.

The presented technology has been used for the fabrication of microfluidic networks with channel widths down to 50 microns and heights down to 20 microns. Many of the available materials can sustain harsh chemical environments and high temperatures making the substrates also applicable for microreactors or chemical processing. The approach of fabricating microfluidic substrates with integrated electrodes using printed circuit technology takes advantage of the well established process control and availability of process equipment for large area panel manufacturing and is well adapted for applications in the field of microTAS and Lab-on-a-Chip.