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Electronics comprises the physics, engineering, technology and applications that deal with the emission, flow and control of electrons in vacuum and matter. It uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification and rectification, which distinguishes it from classical electrical engineering which uses passive effects such as resistance, capacitance and inductance to control current flow.
Microfluidics refers to the behaviour, precise control, and manipulation of fluids that are geometrically constrained to a small scale at which surface forces dominate volumetric forces. It is a multidisciplinary field that involves engineering, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. It has practical applications in the design of systems that process low volumes of fluids to achieve multiplexing, automation, and high-throughput screening. Microfluidics emerged in the beginning of the 1980s and is used in the development of inkjet printheads, DNA chips, lab-on-a-chip technology, micro-propulsion, and micro-thermal technologies.
Digital microfluidics (DMF) is another platform for lab-on-a-chip systems that is based upon the manipulation of microdroplets. Droplets are dispensed, moved, stored, mixed, reacted, or analyzed on a platform with a set of insulated electrodes. Digital microfluidics can be used together with analytical analysis procedures such as mass spectrometry, colorimetry, electrochemical, and electrochemiluminescense.
Electroosmotic flow is the motion of liquid induced by an applied potential across a porous material, capillary tube, membrane, microchannel, or any other fluid conduit. Because electroosmotic velocities are independent of conduit size, as long as the electrical double layer is much smaller than the characteristic length scale of the channel, electroosmotic flow will have little effect. Electroosmotic flow is most significant when in small channels. Electroosmotic flow is an essential component in chemical separation techniques, notably capillary electrophoresis. Electroosmotic flow can occur in natural unfiltered water, as well as buffered solutions.
In industrial process engineering, mixing is a unit operation that involves manipulation of a heterogeneous physical system with the intent to make it more homogeneous. Familiar examples include pumping of the water in a swimming pool to homogenize the water temperature, and the stirring of pancake batter to eliminate lumps (deagglomeration).
In molecular biology, biochips are essentially miniaturized laboratories that can perform hundreds or thousands of simultaneous biochemical reactions. Biochips enable researchers to quickly screen large numbers of biological analytes for a variety of purposes, from disease diagnosis to detection of bioterrorism agents. Digital microfluidic biochips have become one of the most promising technologies in many biomedical fields. In a digital microfluidic biochip, a group of (adjacent) cells in the microfluidic array can be configured to work as storage, functional operations, as well as for transporting fluid droplets dynamically.
A lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a device that integrates one or several laboratory functions on a single integrated circuit of only millimeters to a few square centimeters to achieve automation and high-throughput screening. LOCs can handle extremely small fluid volumes down to less than pico-liters. Lab-on-a-chip devices are a subset of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices and sometimes called "micro total analysis systems" (µTAS). LOCs may use microfluidics, the physics, manipulation and study of minute amounts of fluids. However, strictly regarded "lab-on-a-chip" indicates generally the scaling of single or multiple lab processes down to chip-format, whereas "µTAS" is dedicated to the integration of the total sequence of lab processes to perform chemical analysis. The term "lab-on-a-chip" was introduced when it turned out that µTAS technologies were applicable for more than only analysis purposes.
Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), also known as dimethylpolysiloxane or dimethicone, belongs to a group of polymeric organosilicon compounds that are commonly referred to as silicones. PDMS is the most widely used silicon-based organic polymer due to its versatility and properties leading to many applications. It is particularly known for its unusual rheological properties. PDMS is optically clear and, in general, inert, non-toxic, and non-flammable. It is one of several types of silicone oil. Its applications range from contact lenses and medical devices to elastomers; it is also present in shampoos, food, caulking, lubricants and heat-resistant tiles.
A wax motor is a linear actuator device that converts thermal energy into mechanical energy by exploiting the phase-change behaviour of waxes. During melting, wax typically expands in volume by 5% to 20%.
A static mixer is a precision engineered device for the continuous mixing of fluid materials, without moving components. Normally the fluids to be mixed are liquid, but static mixers can also be used to mix gas streams, disperse gas into liquid or blend immiscible liquids. The energy needed for mixing comes from a loss in pressure as fluids flow through the static mixer. One design of static mixer is the plate-type mixer and another common device type consists of mixer elements contained in a cylindrical (tube) or squared housing. Mixer size can vary from about 6 mm to 6 meters diameter. Typical construction materials for static mixer components included stainless steel, polypropylene, Teflon, PVDF, PVC, CPVC and polyacetal. The latest design involve static mixing elements made of glass-lined steel.
Microfabrication is the process of fabricating miniature structures of micrometre scales and smaller. Historically, the earliest microfabrication processes were used for integrated circuit fabrication, also known as "semiconductor manufacturing" or "semiconductor device fabrication". In the last two decades microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), microsystems, micromachines and their subfields, microfluidics/lab-on-a-chip, optical MEMS, RF MEMS, PowerMEMS, BioMEMS and their extension into nanoscale have re-used, adapted or extended microfabrication methods. Flat-panel displays and solar cells are also using similar techniques.
Axel Scherer is the Bernard Neches Professor of Electrical Engineering, Physics, and Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. He is known for fabricating the world's first semiconducting vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) at Bell Labs. In 2006, Dr. Scherer was named the director of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute. He graduated from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in 1985. At Caltech he teaches a very popular freshman lab course on semiconductor device fabrication: Applied Physics 9ab, for which he wrote the textbook for the course.
Micropumps are devices that can control and manipulate small fluid volumes. Although any kind of small pump is often referred to as micropump, a more accurate definition restricts this term to pumps with functional dimensions in the micrometer range. Such pumps are of special interest in microfluidic research, and have become available for industrial product integration in recent years. Their miniaturized overall size, potential cost and improved dosing accuracy compared to existing miniature pumps fuel the growing interest for this innovative kind of pump.
Bio-MEMS is an abbreviation for biomedical microelectromechanical systems. Bio-MEMS have considerable overlap, and is sometimes considered synonymous, with lab-on-a-chip (LOC) and micro total analysis systems (μTAS). Bio-MEMS is typically more focused on mechanical parts and microfabrication technologies made suitable for biological applications. On the other hand, lab-on-a-chip is concerned with miniaturization and integration of laboratory processes and experiments into single chips. In this definition, lab-on-a-chip devices do not strictly have biological applications, although most do or are amenable to be adapted for biological purposes. Similarly, micro total analysis systems may not have biological applications in mind, and are usually dedicated to chemical analysis. A broad definition for bio-MEMS can be used to refer to the science and technology of operating at the microscale for biological and biomedical applications, which may or may not include any electronic or mechanical functions. The interdisciplinary nature of bio-MEMS combines material sciences, clinical sciences, medicine, surgery, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, optical engineering, chemical engineering, and biomedical engineering. Some of its major applications include genomics, proteomics, molecular diagnostics, point-of-care diagnostics, tissue engineering, single cell analysis and implantable microdevices.
Nanofluidic circuitry is a nanotechnology aiming for control of fluids in nanometer scale. Due to the effect of an electrical double layer within the fluid channel, the behavior of nanofluid is observed to be significantly different compared with its microfluidic counterparts. Its typical characteristic dimensions fall within the range of 1–100 nm. At least one dimension of the structure is in nanoscopic scale. Phenomena of fluids in nano-scale structure are discovered to be of different properties in electrochemistry and fluid dynamics.
Microfluidics in chemical biology is the application of microfluidics in the study of chemical biology.
Nam-Trung Nguyen is a researcher on the fields of Microfluidics and Nanofluidics. He is notable for his work on nerve agent detector, PCR, Micromixer, Droplet-based Microfluidics and Micro Magnetofluidics. He is currently a Professor and Director of Queensland Micro and Nanotechnology Centre at Griffith University. He was a former Associate Professor at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Droplet-based microfluidics manipulate discrete volumes of fluids in immiscible phases with low Reynolds number and laminar flow regimes. Interest in droplet-based microfluidics systems has been growing substantially in past decades. Microdroplets offer the feasibility of handling miniature volumes of fluids conveniently, provide better mixing, encapsulation, sorting, sensing and are suitable for high throughput experiments. Two immiscible phases used for the droplet based systems are referred to as the continuous phase and dispersed phase.
Paper-based microfluidics are microfluidic devices that consist of a series of hydrophilic cellulose or nitrocellulose fibers that guide liquid from an inlet to a desired outlet by imbibition. The technology builds on the conventional lateral flow test which is capable of detecting many infections agents and chemical contaminants. The main advantage of this is that it is largely a passively controlled device unlike more complex microfluidic devices. Development of paper-based microfluidic devices began in the early 21st century to meet a need for inexpensive and portable medical diagnostic systems.
A microvalve is microscale valve, i.e. a microfluidic two-port component that regulates the flow between two fluidic ports. Microvalves are basic components in microfluidic devices, such as Labs-on-a-chip, where they are used to control the fluidic transport. During the period 1995-2005, a lot of Microelectromechanical systems-based microvalves were developed.
References
- ↑ Nguyen, Nan-Trung & Wereley, Steven T. (2006). Fundamentals and Applications of Microfluidics, Second Edition. Artech House. ISBN 978-1-58053-972-2.
- ↑ Hardt, Steffen & Schönfeld, Friedhelm (2007). Microfluidic Technologies for Miniaturized Analysis Systems. Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-28597-9.
- ↑ Li, Paul C. H. (2005). Microfluidic Lab-on-a-Chip for Chemical and Biological Analysis and Discovery. CRC Press. ISBN 1-57444-572-3.
- ↑ Minteer, Shelley D. (2006). Microfluidic Techniques: Reviews and Protocols. Humana Press. ISBN 1-59259-997-4.
- ↑ Chemical Engineering Science 132 (2015) 159–168, Harrison S. Santana