Smart microfluidic systems based on dielectrophoresis and electrowetting

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The project objective is to develop and test methodologies for optical sensing and real time control of electric-field-mediated microfluidic systems for the laboratory-on-a-chip. We will investigate novel flow control and monitoring strategies that combine modulation of voltage and frequency. Success will help in planning future research aimed at implementation of this liquid actuation scheme in a new class of smart, high-speed, microfluidic systems. The project addresses the challenge of how to monitor and control this rapid motion for implementation in the laboratory on a chip. Prior microfluidics research offers little or no guidance about how to control the high-speed, dynamic behavior of sessile, sub-nanoliter liquid masses on substrates.The experimental strategy is to investigate and combine three means to achieve this control voltage magnitude modulation, frequency modulation, and dynamic switching of segmented electrodes. Of these, frequency modulation is most unique because it provides access to the complementary attributes of EWOD and DEP by frequency tuning. Developmentally, TAS and the lab-on-a-chip, are more than ten years behind MEMS and EWOD/DEP-based microfluidics features on-chip manipulation with accessible, planar geometries, thus opening the door to simplified analyte sample injection methods and reduced tendencies to clogging. These electromechanical actuation mechanisms may constitute a solution to the priming and sample introduction bottleneck associated with enclosed channels.The project offers fine opportunities for post-graduate level interdisciplinary research, but perhaps just as important is that we can tap into a genuine excitement about this work displayed by undergraduates and by secondary school students. We will exploit this curiosity by continuing to provided internship opportunities for undergraduates in our laboratory and by expanding our outreach to high school and middle school girls participating in summer science camp at the University of Rochester.