This book provides a coherent avenue into the rapidly evolving discipline of microfluidics and its multiple facets - inkjet printers, micropumps, analytical chips and many other technologies. The comprehensive first part presents a systematic overview of the basic set of principles underlying microfluidic systems, i.e. it explains the full scope of principles underlying microfluidic technologies in a coherent context. It extracts only these contributions from a variety of disciplines such as fluid dynamics, physics and chemistry which are of relevance to microfluidics. These inputs then are refined and streamlined to make the subsequent connection to related microfluidic technologies transparent to the reader. However, in order not to loose the grip on the application perspective the second part discusses a broad range of microfluidic components and devices which have recently been developed and conducts an explorative roadmap for future microfluidic technologies.