Low Cost Graphene Electrodes for Performing Digital Microfluidic Operations on a Hand Held Portable Platform

This work presents a new fabrication method for the electrodes of digital microfluidic (DMF) systems in which the electrodes are fabricated from laser scribed graphene on PET substrates. The new fabrication method helps in rapid design and prototyping of the DMF electrodes easily without a need for highly equipped facilities. The electrodes are fabricated on flexible substrates. Hence, the prospered method improves both the versatility of the DMF chips as we can form them to any desirable shape. The laser scribed graphene chips are then inserted to a battery-powered handheld DMF device to perform different applications such as point of care testing (POCT). The portable device is controlled using a smartphone via a Bluetooth connection. The DMF droplets are magnified using a micro lens installed on top of the smartphone camera to monitor and record DMF processes.