Tremendous interest in microfabricated fluidic channel structures (biochips) has grown over the past decade due to the large number of powerful demonstrations that have appeared in the literature. The diversity of chemical and biochemical measurement techniques implemented on biochips is large including various electrophoretic and chromatographic separations, chemical and enzymatic reactions, noncovalent recognition interactions, sample concentration enhancement, and cellular manipulations.

These devices have low cost and small footprints while consuming miniscule quantities of reagents and producing rapid results. Moreover, the manufacturing strategy used to make these devices, i.e., photolithography, allows highly parallel systems to be fabricated at low incremental cost. Biochips open up a vast potential in the area of chemical analysis, however they rely on good fabrication techniques to ensure effective performance.