Yukun Ren

Alternating current electrokinetic properties of gold-coated microspheres

We present dielectrophoresis (DEP) and electrorotation (ROT) measurements of gold-coated polystyrene microspheres as a function of frequency and for several electrolyte conductivities. Particle rotation was counterfield with a maximum rotation rate observed at a single characteristic frequency. Negative DEP was observed for frequencies lower than this characteristic frequency and positive DEP for signal frequencies higher than this. These experimental observations are in agreement with predictions for the force and torque on the induced dipole of a perfectly polarizable metal sphere. We present a theoretical model for this case, and good agreement is found for both ROT and DEP measurements if we take into account the viscous friction for a spherical particle near a wall. From the characteristic frequency for rotation, we obtain the capacitance of the electrical double layer at the electrolyte-particle interface. Remarkably, no effect of induced charge electroosmosis around the particles can be inferred from DEP measurements.

A theoretical and numerical investigation of travelling wave induction microfluidic pumping in a temperature gradient

The phenomenon of induction electrohydrodynamics (EHD) has recently received great attention as a promising driving mechanism for microfluidic pumping due to its miniaturization capability. To obtain a high working efficiency of induction micropumps, a vertical temperature gradient can be imposed along the depth of a pump channel. A travelling wave (TW) potential signal propagating along an electrode array at the channel substrate interacts with this conductive heat flux, resulting in a local free charge distribution inside the bulk fluid. The induced charge wave lags behind the voltage wave in the spatial phase, and this out-of-phase polarization based pumping effect exhibits a single structural dispersion at charge relaxation frequency of the dielectric system. The classical model of electrothermal flow has always been used to numerically obtain the flow field of TW pumps, but the effect of its small temperature gradient approximation has rarely been investigated. In this study, an enhanced treatment for induction EHD modelling is developed, in which the deflection of potential contour lines caused by large temperature gradients is successfully characterized by an advection–diffusion equation, and a more accurate expression of electrothermal body force is derived and introduced to fluid dynamics as a source term of electrical origin. For the calculation of a repulsion-type induction micropump, although both models present similar results in a small thermal gradient, the enhanced one can provide more exact frequency-dependence of the pump performance and spatial distribution of electrostatic force as well as the resulting velocity profile in an excessive heat flux. Furthermore, a model extension for Joule heating induced TW pumping is also presented, and surprisingly matches the unexpected nonlinear fluid flow behaviour at higher conductivities as reported in a pioneering literature. These results can provide valuable insights into induction pumping of lab-on-chip microfluidic samples.

An effective splitting-and-recombination micromixer with self-rotated contact surface for wide Reynolds number range applications

It is difficult to mix two liquids on a microfluidic chip because the small dimensions and velocities effectively prevent the turbulence. This paper describes two 2-layer PDMS passive micromixers based on the concept of splitting and recombining the flow that exploits a self-rotated contact surface to increase the concentration gradients to obtain fast and efficient mixing. The designed micromixers were simulated and the mixing performance was assessed. The mixers have shown excellent mixing efficiency over a wide range of Reynolds number. The mixers were reasonably fabricated by multilayer soft lithography, and the experimental measurements were performed to qualify the mixing performance of the realized mixer. The results show that the mixing efficiency for one realized mixer is from 91.8% to 87.7% when the Reynolds number increases from 0.3 to 60, while the corresponding value for another mixer is from 89.4% to 72.9%. It is rather interesting that the main mechanism for the rapid mixing is from diffusion to chaotic advection when the flow rate increases, but the mixing efficiency has not obvious decline. The smart geometry of the mixers with total length of 10.25 mm makes it possible to be integrated with many microfluidic devices for various applications in μ-TAS and Lab-on-a-chip systems.

Continuous dielectrophoretic particle separation using a microfluidic device with 3D electrodes and vaulted obstacles

This paper reports a microfluidic separation device combining 3D electrodes and vaulted obstacles to continuously separate particles experiencing strong positive dielectrophoresis (DEP) from particles experiencing weak positive DEP, or from particles experiencing negative DEP. The separation is achieved by first focusing the particle mixture into a narrow stream by a hydrodynamic focusing flow, and then deviating them into different outlets by AC DEP. The vaulted obstacles facilitate the separation by both increasing the non‐uniformity of the electric field, and influencing the particles to move in regions strongly affected by DEP. The 3D electrodes give rise to a spatially non‐uniform electric field and extend DEP effect to the channel height. Numerical simulations are performed to investigate the effects of the obstacles on electric field distribution and particle trajectories so as to optimize the obstacle height and compare with the experimental results. The performance of the device is assessed by separating 25 μm gold‐coated particles from 10 μm particles in different flow rates by positive DEP and negative DEP, and also separating 25 μm gold‐coated particles from yeast cells using only positive DEP. The experimental observation shows a reasonable agreement with numerical simulation results.

Rapid, targeted and culture-free viral infectivity assay in drop-based microfluidics

A key viral property is infectivity, and its accurate measurement is crucial for the understanding of viral evolution, disease and treatment. Currently viral infectivity is measured using plaque assays, which involve prolonged culturing of host cells, and whose measurement is unable to differentiate between specific strains and is prone to low number fluctuation. We developed a rapid, targeted and culture-free infectivity assay using high-throughput drop-based microfluidics. Single infectious viruses are incubated in a large number of picoliter drops with host cells for one viral replication cycle followed by in-drop gene-specific amplification to detect infection events. Using murine noroviruses (MNV) as a model system, we measure their infectivity and determine the efficacy of a neutralizing antibody for different variants of MNV. Our results are comparable to traditional plaque-based assays and plaque reduction neutralization tests. However, the fast, low-cost, highly accurate genomic-based assay promises to be a superior method for drug screening and isolation of resistant viral strains. Moreover our technique can be adapted to measuring the infectivity of other pathogens, such as bacteria and fungi.

A simplified microfluidic device for particle separation with two consecutive steps： induced charge electroosmotic prefocusing and dielectrophoretic separation

Continuous dielectrophoretic separation is recognized as a powerful technique for a large number of applications including early stage cancer diagnosis, water quality analysis, and stem-cell-based therapy. Generally, the prefocusing of a particle mixture into a stream is an essential process to ensure all particles are subjected to the same electric field geometry in the separation region. However, accomplishing this focusing process either requires hydrodynamic squeezing, which requires an encumbering peripheral system and a complicated operation to drive and control the fluid motion, or depends on dielectrophoretic forces, which are highly sensitive to the dielectric characterization of particles. An alternative focusing technique, induced charge electro-osmosis (ICEO), has been demonstrated to be effective in focusing an incoming mixture into a particle stream as well as nonselective regarding the particles of interest. Encouraged by these aspects, we propose a hybrid method for microparticle separation based on a delicate combination of ICEO focusing and dielectrophoretic deflection. This method involves two steps: focusing the mixture into a thin particle stream via ICEO vortex flow and separating the particles of differing dielectic properties through dielectrophoresis. To demonstrate the feasibility of the method proposed, we designed and fabricated a microfluidic chip and separated a mixture consisting of yeast cells and silica particles with an efficiency exceeding 96%. This method has good potential for flexible integration into other microfluidic chips in the future.

On utilizing alternating current-flow field effect transistor for flexibly manipulating particles in microfluidics and nanofluidics

By imposing a biased gate voltage to a center metal strip, arbitrary symmetry breaking in induced-charge electroosmotic flow occurs on the surface of this planar gate electrode, a phenomenon termed as AC-flow field effect transistor (AC-FFET). In this work, the potential of AC-FFET with a shiftable flow stagnation line to flexibly manipulate micro-nano particle samples in both a static and continuous flow condition is demonstrated via theoretical analysis and experimental validation. The effect of finite Debye length of induced double-layer and applied field frequency on the manipulating flexibility factor for static condition is investigated, which indicates AC-FFET turns out to be more effective for achieving a position-controllable concentrating of target nanoparticle samples in nanofluidics compared to the previous trial in microfluidics. Besides, a continuous microfluidics-based particle concentrator/director is developed to deal with incoming analytes in dynamic condition, which exploits a design of tandem electrode configuration to consecutively flow focus and divert incoming particle samples to a desired downstream branch channel, as prerequisite for a following biochemical analysis. Our physical demonstrations with AC-FFET prove valuable for innovative designs of flexible electrokinetic frameworks, which can be conveniently integrated with other microfluidic or nanofluidic components into a complete lab-on-chip diagnostic platform due to a simple electrode structure.

Artifact-Free Quantification and Sequencing of Rare Recombinant Viruses by Using Drop-Based Microfluidics.

Recombination is an important driver in the evolution of viruses and thus is key to understanding viral epidemics and improving strategies to prevent future outbreaks. Characterization of rare recombinant subpopulations remains technically challenging because of artifacts such as artificial recombinants, known as chimeras, and amplification bias. To overcome this, we have developed a high‐throughput microfluidic technique with a second verification step in order to amplify and sequence single recombinant viruses with high fidelity in picoliter drops. We obtained the first artifact‐free estimate of in vitro recombination rate between murine norovirus strains MNV‐1 and WU20 co‐infecting a cell (Prec=3.3×10−4±2×10−5) for a 1205 nt region. Our approach represents a time‐ and cost‐effective improvement over current methods, and can be adapted for genomic studies requiring artifact‐ and bias‐free selective amplification, such as microbial pathogens, or rare cancer cells.

Enhanced particle trapping performance of induced charge electroosmosis

By increasing the number of floating electrodes or enlarging the width of single floating electrode, this work provides effective ways to strongly improve the particle trapping performance of induced charge electroosmosis (ICEO). Particle trapping with double or triple separate narrow floating electrodes increases the effective actuating range of ICEO flow and therefore enhance the optimum trapping ability to be 1.63 or 2.34 times of that with single narrow electrode (width of L=200μm ), and the ideal trapping frequency is independent of the electrode number due to the mutual independence of electrochemical ion relaxation over each electrode. Furthermore, using a single wide floating electrode with the effective width equal to three separate narrow floating electrodes ( L=600μm ) instead of a single narrow one slightly lowers the ideal trapping frequency due to an increase in the characteristic polarization length, but the trapping performance is only up to 1.59 times of that with original single narrow electrode, implying that vertical channel confinement effect may severely suppresses the effective actuating range of ICEO flow and renders the trapping performance not as expected. Trapping experiments over wide floating electrode with different channel height were carried out, showing that the trapping performance increases by correctly increasing the channel height.

Electrocoalescence of paired droplets encapsulated in double-emulsion drops

We utilize an ac electric field to trigger the on-demand fusion of two aqueous cores inside water-in-oil-in-water (W/O/W) double-emulsion drops. We attribute the coalescence phenomenon to field-induced structural polarization and breakdown of the stress balance at interfaces. This method provides not only accurate control over the reaction time of coalescence but also protection of the reaction from cross contamination.