Conventional photolithography, technological alternatives

As glass and quartz exhibit the same surface property as fused-silica capillary, the monolithic materials could be conveniently prepared in a glass- or quartz-based microfluidic device via the same way of monoliths in the capillary. However, glass/quartz devices are rather expensive, and the need for specialized facilities for their fabrication with conventional photolithography technology hinders any rapid modification of the chip architecture. An attractive alternative is using a variety of polymeric materials, such as poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), polycarbonate (PC), and cyclic olefin copolymer (COC), to fabricate microchips for their mechanical and chemical properties, low cost, ease of fabrication, and high flexibility. 

Very low cost, medium performance printed electronics A less controversial area is printed (or organic) electronics. The objective in this rapidly developing field is to develop alternatives to silicon and conventional photolithography as the basis for electronic systems151"153. Initially, the devices produced using this technology would have relatively low performance, but very low cost. These devices would be directed toward applications (for example, RF ID tags154) where one-time use would dictate cost and performance. 

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