Rapid prototyping of microfluidic chips using laser-cut double-sided tape for electrochemical biosensors

Nowadays, microfluidic technologies have widely been employed in developing point-of-care diagnostics to address global health issues because of their potential advantages of low sample and reagent consumption, high throughput and sensitivity, large surface-to-volume ratio, and other benefits related to miniaturization. However, the fabrication of microfluidic channels is commonly costly and requires laboratory-intensive cleaning, photolithography, and etching or baking steps in cleanroom environments, making it difficult to modify. Besides, proper channel enclosure without deforming small features or without clogging of the channel during the bonding process is challenging. The present article aims to demonstrate a cheap, reliable, and rapid method for the fabrication of microfluidic channels using double-sided tapes, enabling not only highly uniform cross-sectional dimensions along the microfluidic channels but also proper adhesion in hybrid systems, composed of different layers. In other words, this technique provides a single-step integration of electrochemical sensors in a microfluidic chip, which could be useful for rapid and low-cost fabrication of microfluidic-based electrochemical sensors.