Drop or Bubble on demand in a microfluidic chip
Contact：Jie Xu
A novel technique of in-chip drop on demand has been developed to dispense individual picoliter to nanoliter drops directly in the liquid-filled channels, with precise size and timing control.
- Drops can be generated continuously at up to 2.5 kHz.
- Drops with volumes from 25 pL to 4.5 nL can be precisely generated by varying pulse shapes and nozzle sizes.
- At low dispense rate, the standard deviation of drop volumes is measured to be less than 2 %.
Features:
merging and mixing two drops of different reagents
digital control of drop volume
dual-drop dispense, where two drops are generated
simultaneously by a single pulse
particle encapsulation in a single drop
In addition to dispensing drops, the piezoelectric actuation technique can be used to dispense a single bubble on demand in the main channel.
Funding: NSF grants 0449269 and 0701729 and Columbia Medical School.
Publications: