Ricerc@Sapienza

Lab-on-Chip are miniaturized systems able to perform biomolecular analysis in shorter time and with lower reagent consumption than a standard laboratory. Their miniaturization interferes with the multiple functions that the biochemical procedures require. In order to address this issue, our paper presents, for the first time, the integration on a single glass substrate of different thin film technologies in order to develop a multifunctional platform suitable for on-chip thermal treatments and on-chip detection of biomolecules.

This paper presents a lab-on-chip system suitable for real-time polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR) to quantify the number of DNA copies in samples, taking advantage of the combination of thin film technologies on the same glass substrate. A thin film metal heater, deposited on one side of a glass substrate, provides the thermal energy for the DNA treatment, while amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) photosensors, deposited on the other glass side, monitor the DNA amplification. Indeed, the glass is optically coupled with another glass hosting the microfluidic network, where the PCR occurs.

This work reports on design and fabrication of a compact lab-on-chip system, based on detection of electrochemiluminescence (ECL) through thin film sensors. The proposed system couples an optoelectronic platform to a disposable microfluidic chip. The optoelectronic platform includes amorphous silicon photosensors for detection of ECL, while the microfluidic chip contains the ECL electrodes and the biological solutions to be analyzed.

The present paper describes the development of an integrated lab-on-chip, in which viral DNA amplifica- tion with real-time on-chip detection is carried out under constant temperature of 65 °C. The lab-on-chip is composed of a disposable 10-uL polydimethylsiloxane reaction chamber which is thermally and opti- cally coupled to a glass substrate that hosts a thin-film metallic resistive heater and thin-film amorphous silicon diodes which act as temperature and radiation sensors.