scholarly journals Push/Pull Inequality Based High-Speed On-Chip Mixer Enhanced by Wettability

Micromachines ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 950
Author(s):  
Toshio Takayama ◽  
Naoya Hosokawa ◽  
Chia-Hung Dylan Tsai ◽  
Makoto Kaneko

In this paper, a high-speed on-chip mixer using two effects is proposed, i.e., push/pull inequality and wettability. Push/pull inequality and wettability are effective for generating a rotational fluid motion in the chamber and for enhancing the rotational speed by reducing the viscous loss between the liquid and channel wall, respectively. An on-chip mixer is composed of three components, a microfluidic channel for making the main fluid flow, a circular chamber connected to the channel for generating a rotational flow, and an actuator connected at the end of the channel allowing a push/pull motion to be applied to the liquid in the main channel. The flow patterns in the chamber under push/pull motions are nonreversible for each motion and, as a result, produce one-directional torque to the fluid in the circular chamber. This nonreversible motion is called push/pull inequality and eventually creates a swirling flow in the chamber. Using hydrophilic treatments, we executed the experiment with a straight channel and a circular chamber to clarify the mixing characteristics at different flow speeds. According to the results, it is confirmed that the swirling velocity under appropriately tuned wettability is 100 times faster than that without tuning.

Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 839
Author(s):  
Peter E. Beshay ◽  
Ali M. Ibrahim ◽  
Stefanie S. Jeffrey ◽  
Roger T. Howe ◽  
Yasser H. Anis

In this paper we study the dynamics of single cells encapsulated in water-in-oil emulsions in a microchannel. The flow field of a microfluidic channel is coupled to the internal flow field of a droplet through viscous traction at the interface, resulting in a rotational flow field inside the droplet. An encapsulated single cell being subjected to this flow field responds by undergoing multiple orbits, spins, and deformations that depend on its physical properties. Monitoring the cell dynamics, using a high-speed camera, can lead to the development of new label-free methods for the detection of rare cells, based on their biomechanical properties. A sheath flow microchannel was proposed to strengthen the rotational flow field inside droplets flowing in Poiseuille flow conditions. A numerical model was developed to investigate the effect of various parameters on the rotational flow field inside a droplet. The multi-phase flow model required the tracking of the fluid–fluid interface, which deforms over time due to the applied shear stresses. Experiments confirmed the significant effect of the sheath flow rate on the cell dynamics, where the speed of cell orbiting was doubled. Doubling the cell speed can double the amount of extracted biomechanical information from the encapsulated cell, while it remains within the field of view of the camera used.


Nanophotonics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 937-945
Author(s):  
Ruihuan Zhang ◽  
Yu He ◽  
Yong Zhang ◽  
Shaohua An ◽  
Qingming Zhu ◽  
...  

AbstractUltracompact and low-power-consumption optical switches are desired for high-performance telecommunication networks and data centers. Here, we demonstrate an on-chip power-efficient 2 × 2 thermo-optic switch unit by using a suspended photonic crystal nanobeam structure. A submilliwatt switching power of 0.15 mW is obtained with a tuning efficiency of 7.71 nm/mW in a compact footprint of 60 μm × 16 μm. The bandwidth of the switch is properly designed for a four-level pulse amplitude modulation signal with a 124 Gb/s raw data rate. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed switch is the most power-efficient resonator-based thermo-optic switch unit with the highest tuning efficiency and data ever reported.


Nanophotonics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 3357-3365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaohua Dong ◽  
Qing Zhang ◽  
Guangtao Cao ◽  
Jincheng Ni ◽  
Ting Shi ◽  
...  

AbstractPlasmons, as emerging optical diffraction-unlimited information carriers, promise the high-capacity, high-speed, and integrated photonic chips. The on-chip precise manipulations of plasmon in an arbitrary platform, whether two-dimensional (2D) or one-dimensional (1D), appears demanding but non-trivial. Here, we proposed a meta-wall, consisting of specifically designed meta-atoms, that allows the high-efficiency transformation of propagating plasmon polaritons from 2D platforms to 1D plasmonic waveguides, forming the trans-dimensional plasmonic routers. The mechanism to compensate the momentum transformation in the router can be traced via a local dynamic phase gradient of the meta-atom and reciprocal lattice vector. To demonstrate such a scheme, a directional router based on phase-gradient meta-wall is designed to couple 2D SPP to a 1D plasmonic waveguide, while a unidirectional router based on grating metawall is designed to route 2D SPP to the arbitrarily desired direction along the 1D plasmonic waveguide by changing the incident angle of 2D SPP. The on-chip routers of trans-dimensional SPP demonstrated here provide a flexible tool to manipulate propagation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) and may pave the way for designing integrated plasmonic network and devices.


Biosensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Puneet Manocha ◽  
Gitanjali Chandwani

Molecular communication is a bioinspired communication that enables macro-scale, micro-scale and nano-scale devices to communicate with each other. The molecular communication system is prone to severe signal attenuation, dispersion and delay, which leads to performance degradation as the distance between two communicating devices increases. To mitigate these challenges, relays are used to establish reliable communication in microfluidic channels. Relay assisted molecular communication systems can also enable interconnection among various entities of the lab-on-chip for sharing information. Various relaying schemes have been proposed for reliable molecular communication systems, most of which lack practical feasibility. Thus, it is essential to design and develop relays that can be practically incorporated into the microfluidic channel. This paper presents a novel design of passive in-line relay for molecular communication system that can be easily embedded in the microfluidic channel and operate without external energy. Results show that geometric modification in the microfluidic channel can act as a relay and restore the degraded signal up-to 28%.


Author(s):  
Nilanjan Mukherjee ◽  
Artur Pogiel ◽  
Janusz Rajski ◽  
Jerzy Tyszer
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Jing Ren ◽  
Sriram Sundararajan

Realistic random roughness of channel surfaces is known to affect the fluid flow behavior in microscale fluidic devices. This has relevance particularly for applications involving non-Newtonian fluids, such as biomedical lab-on-chip devices. In this study, a surface texturing process was developed and integrated into microfluidic channel fabrication. The process combines colloidal masking and Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) for generating random surfaces with desired roughness parameters on the micro/nanoscale. The surface texturing process was shown to be able to tailor the random surface roughness on quartz. A Large range of particle coverage (around 6% to 67%) was achieved using dip coating and drop casting methods using a polystyrene colloidal solution. A relation between the amplitude roughness, autocorrelation length, etch depth and particle coverage of the processed surface was built. Experimental results agreed reasonably well with model predictions. The processed substrate was further incorporated into microchannel fabrication. Final device with designed wall roughness was tested and proved a satisfying sealing performance.


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