English

Shear flow pumping in open microfluidic systems

Soft Condensed Matter 2009-11-11 v1

Abstract

We propose to drive open microfluidic systems by shear in a covering fluid layer, e.g., oil covering water-filled chemical channels. The advantages as compared to other means of pumping are simpler forcing and prevention of evaporation of volatile components. We calculate the expected throughput for straight channels and show that devices can be built with off-the-shelf technology. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest that this concept is scalable down to the nanoscale.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0610735,
  title  = {Shear flow pumping in open microfluidic systems},
  author = {Markus Rauscher and S. Dietrich and Joel Koplik},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0610735},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, 4 figure, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett