Droplet microfluidics driven by gradients of confinement.

ABSTRACT: The miniaturization of droplet manipulation methods has led to drops being proposed as microreactors in many applications of biology and chemistry. In parallel, microfluidic methods have been applied to generate monodisperse emulsions for applications in the pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and food industries. To date, microfluidic droplet production has been dominated by a few designs that use hydrodynamic forces, resulting from the flowing fluids, to break drops at a junction. Here we present a platform for droplet generation and manipulation that does not depend on the fluid flows. Instead, we use devices that incorporate height variations to subject the immiscible interfaces to gradients of confinement. The resulting curvature imbalance along the interface causes the detachment of monodisp

SUBMITTER: Dangla R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3549071 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature