Significance of digital microfluidic techniques in biomedical devices for healthcare

Digital microfluidics (DMF) breaks up the continuous flow of analysts’ solution into discrete droplets and offers radical improvements on the manipulation of pL-sized to µL-sized droplets moving, merging, splitting, and dispensing from reservoirs. Due to its unique advantages including precise control, high throughput, less cross-contamination, simple instrumentation, flexible device geometry, and easy coupling with other technologies, its applications have been extremely promoted in the last two decades. A variety of biomedical devices have been implemented and demonstrated for healthcare ranging from biochemical synthesis to molecular diagnostics and immunoassays. In this chapter, DMF technology from the aspects of fundamentals, actuation mechanisms, and device fabrication is described. Current progress in biomedical devices of DMF for healthcare is reviewed and evaluated. Download : Download full-size image