Miniaturization is a general concept addressing the trend of manufacturing small and smaller mechanical, optical, and electronic products and devices. Today, this trend has gained a high interest of researchers of engineering, medicine, materials science, physics, chemistry, and computer science. An analytical process consists of six general steps including sampling, sample preparation, separation, and isolation of the analyte, detection, data acquisition/processing, and final decision/report. The first step of an analytical process does not benefit much from the idea of miniaturization. However, sample preparation, separation, and isolation of the analyte, and detection steps have moved toward miniaturization and automation to a supreme extent. Due to the importance of miniaturization in analytical chemistry, this chapter presents an introduction to the fundamentals of miniaturization toward the development of portable analytical devices.
