Kusunoki Higashino

A plug and play microfluidic device.

Chip-to-world interface is a major issue in the field of microfluidics and its applications. We developed a plug and play microfluidic device composed of a fluid driving unit and a polymer chip containing microfluidic channels and reservoirs. The one and only connection of the device to the external world is a set of electric control lines for the driving unit. Just putting the reagents and samples onto the reservoirs, the chip can be operated for chemical or biochemical reaction and analysis. We demonstrate here that silicon-based micropumps embedded in the present device allow us to achieve flexible fluidic manipulations with minimum time delay and dead volume.

Development of a bi-directional valve-less silicon micro pump controlled by driving waveform

A new bi-directional valve-less silicon micro pump was proposed based on an analysis using an equivalent circuit model, and the performance of the fabricated pump was studied. The flow direction of the pump can be controlled by changing a driving waveform applied to a PZT plate fixed on a diaphragm. The feasibility of this new bi-directional pumping principle was verified by experiments. The pump generated maximum flow rates of 393 nl/s for forward direction and 323 nl/s for backward direction and maximum pumping pressures of 11.0 kPa for forward direction and 9.9 kPa for backward direction.

New bi-directional valve-less silicon micro pump controlled by driving waveform

A new bi-directional valve-less silicon micro pump was proposed based on the analysis using an equivalent circuit model, and a performance of the fabricated pump was studied. The flow direction of the pump can be controlled by changing a driving waveform applied to a PZT plate fixed on a diaphragm. The feasibility of this new bidirectional pumping principle was verified by the experiments. The pump generated maximum flow rates of 220 nl/s for forward direction and 190 nl/s for backward direction and maximum pumping pressures of 9.7 kPa for forward direction and 8.3 kPa. for backward direction.