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Published on: December 10, 2011
A Digital Microfluidic Droplet Robotic System Enabled by Programmed Electrostatic Tweezer Arrays and Femtosecond
Zhenrui Chen1, Xinlei Li1, Chaowei Wang1
1State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Information Acquisition and Protection, Key Laboratory of Precision Scientific Instrumentation of Anhui Higher Education Institutes, Department of Precision Machinery and Precision Instrumentation, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, P. R. China.
Abstract:
This paper reports a novel contactless droplet robotic system combining an array of electrostatic tweezers (ESTs) with an insulating superhydrophobic platform, enabling programmable droplet manipulation. First, we show that the EST can precisely trap and transport droplets on diverse insulating superhydrophobic surfaces─previously deemed unsuitable for such manipulation─by optimizing the applied electrostatic potential and EST height. The combination of the EST and insulating superhydrophobic substrates enables the trapping and manipulation of droplets across a wide volume range (covering at least 3 orders of magnitude) and a variety of liquid types (such as HCl, NaOH, and NaCl droplets). As a proof of concept, we finally prepare a simple droplet robotic system based on an EST array and achieve the digital control of droplet motion via selective electrode activation. The results successfully demonstrate the system's potential as a versatile, high-performance platform for digital microfluidics (DMF) applications.
