This paper presents experimental results and analyses on the controlled manipulation of a liquid droplet. The droplet was manipulated upon local reduction and oxidation (redox) of dodecylbenzenesulfonate doped polypyrrole (PPy(DBS)) in an immiscible organic fluid of bulk dichloromethane (DCM, CH(2)Cl(2)). The electrochemically tunable wetting property of PPy(DBS) permitted liquid droplet manipu...

We demonstrate the use of Escherichia coli and their chemotactic characteristics to enhance mixing in a microchannel in a controlled and bi-directional manner. The presence of a chemoattractant in one arm of a three-junction microchannel results in an asymmetric increase in the effective diffusion coefficient of extremely high molecular weight TMR-Dextran (MW 2 000 000), which rises linearly wi...

INTRODUCTION Blood samples are a critical component of Point-of-Care clinical diagnosis [1]. These blood samples are analyzed in Lab-on-a-Chip devices, which monitor important parameters such as glucose and lactate levels. For these systems to work, the blood sample must be introduced to an empty capillary microchannel that guides the sample to an on-chip sensor. Thus the filling characteristic...

We report on inscription of microchannels of different widths in optical fiber using femtosecond (fs) laser inscription assisted chemical etching and the narrowest channel has been created with a width down to only 1.2μm. Microchannels with 5μm and 35μm widths were fabricated together with Fabry-Pérot (FP) cavities formed by UV laser written fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), creating high function a...

We report the first use of ultrasonic standing waves to achieve cell cycle phase synchronization in mammalian cells in a high-throughput and reagent-free manner. The acoustophoretic cell synchronization (ACS) device utilizes volume-dependent acoustic radiation force within a microchannel to selectively purify target cells of desired phase from an asynchronous mixture based on cell cycle-depende...

We have developed a novel microfluidic system for the simple visual quantitation of target molecules in microliter volumes, for application in point-of-care diagnostics. We constructed microfluidic conduits with a critical dimension (height) of a few micrometers in a deformable material and coated the microchannel surfaces with receptors for the target. When a solution containing the target flo...

We developed a novel single-step capillary electrophoresis (SSCE) scheme for field-amplified sample stacking (FASS) by using a hydrophilic material polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) microchannel chip. The capillary effect was used to introduce liquids and control capillary stop valves in a partial barrier structure of the microchannel. Through the combined action of stop valves and air vents, both...

Correction for 'Bottom-up fabrication of artery-mimicking tubular co-cultures in collagen-based microchannel scaffolds' by A. Tan, et al., Biomater. Sci., 2016, DOI: 10.1039/c6bm00340k.

A method of in situ chromosome immobilisation and DNA extraction in a microfluidic polymer chip was presented. Light-induced local heating was used to induce poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) phase transition in order to create a hydrogel and embed a single chromosome such that it was immobilised. This was achieved with the use of a near-infrared laser focused on an absorption layer integrated in the...

A microelectronic fluidic system has been investigated by modeling and 3D simulation of fluid flow controlled by an applied gate voltage. The simulations have helped to characterize a novel FlowFET (a fluidic Field Effect Transistor) device under fault-free conditions. The FlowFET operates by applying a voltage field from a gate electrode in the insulated side wall of a microchannel to modulate...