Acoustically driven programmable liquid motion using resonance cavities.

ABSTRACT: Performance and utility of microfluidic systems are often overshadowed by the difficulties and costs associated with operation and control. As a step toward the development of a more efficient platform for microfluidic control, we present a distributed pressure generation scheme whereby independently tunable pressure sources can be simultaneously controlled by using a single acoustic source. We demonstrate how this scheme can be used to perform precise droplet positioning as well as merging, splitting, and sorting within open microfluidic networks. We further show how this scheme can be implemented for control of continuous-flow systems, specifically for generation of acoustically tunable liquid gradients. Device operation hinges on a resonance-decoding and rectification mechanism by which

SUBMITTER: Langelier SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2722265 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature