For many microfluidic laboratories and early-stage companies, device fabrication can become a significant demand on time and resources. While many groups are capable of fabricating their own chips, doing so often requires dedicated cleanroom access, specialized equipment, process optimization, and skilled personnel. Maintaining these workflows can pull researchers away from their primary scientific or engineering objectives and slow overall progress.
Wunderlichips GmbH offers a flexible alternative: expert-driven, turnkey microfluidic device fabrication that supplements in-house capabilities. By outsourcing some or all of the fabrication process to Wunderlichips, researchers can reduce internal workload and focus more of their effort on experimental design, data generation, and application development, while relying on proven soft lithography expertise to deliver high-quality PDMS devices.
Following fabrication, Harrick Plasma systems provide a practical, in-lab solution for final device preparation. Plasma surface treatment enables reliable PDMS–glass bonding, surface activation, and chip readiness immediately prior to use. This complementary approach allows laboratories to retain control over final surface preparation, without the need to scale additional microfabrication infrastructure. Together, Wunderlichips and Harrick Plasma support a fabrication workflow that balances in-house capability with outsourced expertise, reducing manpower demands, accelerating research timelines, and delivering reproducible PDMS microfluidic devices ready for experimental use.
To see examples of this approach in practice, readers are encouraged to review the following peer-reviewed publications in which Wunderlichips fabrication and Harrick Plasma surface treatment are used together within the same device workflows. These studies illustrate how outsourced microfabrication combined with in-house plasma treatment supports reproducible PDMS chip fabrication across a range of applications.
For guidance on device design, fabrication strategies, or determining which parts of the process to outsource, contact Wunderlichips to discuss your specific microfluidic requirements.
Harrick Plasma & Wunderlichips Articles
Debon, A., Pott, M., Obexer, R., Green, A. P., Friedrich, L., Griffiths, A. D., & Hilvert, D. (2019). Ultrahigh-throughput screening enables efficient single-round oxidase remodelling. Nature Catalysis, 2(9), 740–747. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-019-0340-5
Girardin, S., Clément, B., Ihle, S. J., Weaver, S., Petr, J. B., Mateus, J. C., Duru, J., Krubner, M., Forró, C., Ruff, T., Fruh, I., Müller, M., & Vörös, J. (2022). Topologically controlled circuits of human iPSC-derived neurons for electrophysiology recordings. Lab on a Chip, 22(7), 1386–1403. https://doi.org/10.1039/d1lc01110c
Küchler, J., Vulić, K., Yao, H., Valmaggia, C., Ihle, S. J., Weaver, S., & Vörös, J. (2025). Engineered biological neuronal networks as basic logic operators. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, 19, 1559936. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2025.1559936
Mateus, J. C., Weaver, S., Van Swaay, D., Renz, A. F., Hengsteler, J., Aguiar, P., & Vörös, J. (2022). Nanoscale patterning of in vitro neuronal circuits. ACS Nano, 16(4), 5731–5742. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.1c10750