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This thesis summarises work towards a Lab-on-Chip (LOC). The request for faster and more efficient chemical and biological analysis is the motivation behind the development of the LOC-concept.

Microfluidic devices tend to become increasingly complex in order to include, e.g. sample delivery, manipulation, and detection, in one chip. The urge for smart and simple design of robust and low-cost microdevices is addressed and discussed.

Design, fabrication and characterization of such microdevices have been demonstrated using low-cost polymer and glass microfabrication methods. The manufacturing is feasible, to a large extent, to perform outside the clean-room, and has subsequently been the chosen technique for most of the work. Issues of bonding reliability are solved by using polymer adhesive tapes.

A planar electrocapture device with LOC-compatibility is demonstrated where beads are immobilised and released in a flowing stream. Retention of nanoparticles by means of electric field-flow fractionation using transparent indium tin oxide electrodes is presented. Moreover, a cast PDMS 4-way crossing is enabling a combination of liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis to enhance separation efficiency. Sample transport issues and a new flow-cell design in a quartz crystal microbalance bioanalyzer are also investigated. Fast bacteria counting by impedance measurements, much requested by the pharmaceutical industry for biomass monitoring, is carried out successfully.

In conclusion, knowledge in micro system technology to build microdevices have been utilised to manipulate and characterise beads and cells, taking one step further towards viable Lab-on-Chip instruments.

Materials with biotechnological applications and materials that interact with the biological environment play an ever increasing role in our lives and society. In order to be able to tailor specific properties of these materials to suit their intended applications, it is important to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between the material structure and its function.

This thesis contributes to the goal of achieving a better understanding of the functional properties of materials through the development of novel characterizing methods as well as the analysis of such materials. Electrodynamic and mechanical spectroscopy methods are developed or employed in the characterization of three classes of materials, namely, pharmaceutical, biomedical and biological materials.

Two electrodynamic methods utilizing conductivity measurements were developed for the investigation of drug release from pharmaceutical dosage forms, particularly in low liquid volumes. Furthermore, a mechanical spectroscopy method based on the split Hopkinson pressure bar setup was developed for the viscoelastic characterization of pharmaceutical compacts. It was shown that this method is a valuable complement to other methods of characterization.

Dielectric spectroscopy was integrated with microfabrication techniques to create a method for bacteria detection in a biotechnological application. As well, dielectric spectroscopy was used in the characterization of a novel biomimetic ionomer and was demonstrated to be a powerful tool for studying the bulk molecular dynamics of this functional material.

The work presented in this thesis not only provides an enhanced understanding of materials and their functional properties, but also presents new methods that should be useful for the future characterization of such materials.