Open-atmosphere sustenance of highly volatile attoliter-size droplets on surfaces.

ABSTRACT: The controlled formation and handling of minute liquid volumes on surfaces is essential to the success of microfluidics in biology, chemistry, and materials applications. Even though current methods have demonstrated their potential in a variety of experimental assays, there remain significant difficulties concerning breadth of applicability, standardization, throughput, and economics. Here we introduce a unique microfluidic paradigm in which microscopic volatile droplets are formed, sustained, and manipulated in size and content at any desired spot on unpatterned substrates. Their sustainability is warranted by continuous replacement of the rapidly vaporizing sessile fluid through controlled equivalent volume deposition of smaller discrete liquid entities by an electrohydrodynamic nanodri

SUBMITTER: Galliker P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3746916 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature