Miniaturized Electrically Actuated Microfluidic System for Biosensor Applications

The miniaturization of microfluidic systems able to manage small sample volumes is one of the key factors for the sensor applications. In this paper, we describe a miniaturized Lab-on-Chip (LoC) system able to electro-loading small volumes of genetic sample (200 nl) via ElectroWetting on Dielectric (EWoD) actuation and detect DNA via polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The core of the system is a miniaturized silicon-based chip that electrically delivers a total volume of 20 mu l of liquid into 96 miniaturized chambers of 200 nl each. The chambers are chemically treated with a proper surface process to achieve both a suitable wettability for electrokinetics liquid loading and surface biocompatibility for PCR process. The chip contains integrated temperature sensors and heaters for driving the PCR thermal process. The system here described is proved to be able to electro-loading small volumes of sample (about 200 nl) and performPCR amplification in multiple microchambers (up to 96), being a very appealing potential solution for genetic point-of-care applications.