This review reports the progress on the recent development of micromixers. The review first presents the different micromixer types and designs. Micromixers in this review are categorized as passive micromixers and active micromixers. Due to the simple fabrication technology and the easy implementation in a complex microfluidic system, passive micromixers will be the focus of this review. Next, the review discusses the operation points of the micromixers based on characteristic dimensionless numbers such as Reynolds number Re, Peclet number Pe, and in dynamic cases the Strouhal number St. The fabrication technologies for different mixer types are also analysed. Quantification techniques for evaluation of the performance of micromixers are discussed. Finally, the review addresses typical applications of micromixers.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0960-1317/15/2/R01/pdf

Micromixers?a review

Nanotechnology is the science of understanding matter and the control of matter at dimensions of 100 nm or less. Encompassing nanoscale science, engineering, and technology, nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulation of matter at this level of precision. An important aspect of research in nanotechnology involves precision control and manipulation of devices and materials at a nanoscale, i.e., nanopositioning. Nanopositioners are precision mechatronic systems designed to move objects over a small range with a resolution down to a fraction of an atomic diameter. The desired attributes of a nanopositioner are extremely high resolution, accuracy, stability, and fast response. The key to successful nanopositioning is accurate position sensing and feedback control of the motion. This paper presents an overview of nanopositioning technologies and devices emphasizing the key role of advanced control techniques in improving precision, accuracy, and speed of operation of these systems.

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A Survey of Control Issues in Nanopositioning

This article reviews acoustic microfiuidics: the use of acoustic fields, principally ultrasonics, for application in microfiuidics. Although acoustics is a classical field, its promising, and indeed perplexing, capabilities in powerfully manipulating both fluids and particles within those fluids on the microscale to nanoscale has revived interest in it. The bewildering state of the literature and ample jargon from decades of research is reorganized and presented in the context of models derived from first principles. This hopefully will make the area accessible for researchers with experience in materials science, fluid mechanics, or dynamics. The abundance of interesting phenomena arising from nonlinear interactions in ultrasound that easily appear at these small scales is considered, especially in surface acoustic wave devices that are simple to fabricate with planar lithography techniques common in microfluidics, along with the many applications in microfluidics and nanofluidics that appear through the literature.

/pdf/microscale-acoustofluidics-microfluidics-driven-via-5bet39j13p.pdf

Microscale acoustofluidics: Microfluidics driven via acoustics and ultrasonics

The aim of microfluidic mixing is to achieve a thorough and rapid mixing of multiple samples in microscale devices. In such devices, sample mixing is essentially achieved by enhancing the diffusion effect between the different species flows. Broadly speaking, microfluidic mixing schemes can be categorized as either “active”, where an external energy force is applied to perturb the sample species, or “passive”, where the contact area and contact time of the species samples are increased through specially-designed microchannel configurations. Many mixers have been proposed to facilitate this task over the past 10 years. Accordingly, this paper commences by providing a high level overview of the field of microfluidic mixing devices before describing some of the more significant proposals for active and passive mixers.

/pdf/microfluidic-mixing-a-review-3egj61w5ox.pdf

Microfluidic Mixing: A Review

The ability to tailor the chemical composition and structure of a surface at the sub-100-nm length scale is important for studying topics ranging from molecular electronics to materials assembly, and for investigating biological recognition at the single biomolecule level. Dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) is a scanning probe microscopy-based nanofabrication technique that uniquely combines direct-write soft-matter compatibility with the high resolution and registry of atomic force microscopy (AFM), which makes it a powerful tool for depositing soft and hard materials, in the form of stable and functional architectures, on a variety of surfaces. The technology is accessible to any researcher who can operate an AFM instrument and is now used by more than 200 laboratories throughout the world. This article introduces DPN and reviews the rapid growth of the field of DPN-enabled research and applications over the past several years.

Applications of dip-pen nanolithography.

A capacitive membrane ultrasonic transducer which includes a membrane supported by a substrate in which ultrasonic bulk waves at the frequency of operation of the transducers are suppressed by configuring the substrate and a method of suppressing the ultrasonic bulk waves.

Capacitive membrane ultrasonic transducers with reduced bulk wave generation and method

Microfluidic devices integrated with ultrasonic transducers were developed Piezoelectric thin film based transducers and capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs) were integrated with microchannels While piezoelectric transducers operated in the vicinity of 400 MHz, the operation frequency of the CMUTs was approximately 50 MHz Ultrasound generated by the transducers was used for both heating the liquid and sensing the temperature of the liquid inside the channel The temperature measurement method depends on the time of flight monitoring of the acoustic reflections inside the channel The method was applied to channels with different heights from 200 μm to 500 μm The accuracy of the method was found to be 01 °C The measurement bandwidth could be as high as 1 MHz

Ultrasonic heating and temperature measurement in microfluidic channels

Direct deposition of photoresist and other spin-on materials, such as low-k and high-k dielectrics, has the potential to reduce waste as well as production costs. A new design of acoustically actuated two-dimensional (2-D) micromachined droplet ejector arrays can eject various solvents and other fluids ranging from femtoliter to picoliter droplet volumes. These ejectors do not harm fluids that are heat or pressure sensitive. Moreover, they are chemically compatible with the materials used in integrated circuit manufacturing. Therefore, they can be used for benign deposition of photoresist and other spin-on materials, such as low-k and high-k dielectrics. A vibrating circular Si/sub x/N/sub y/ thin-film membrane with an orifice at the center forms the unit cell of a 2-D ejector array. Initially, one side of the membrane is loaded with the ejection fluid. Then, ultrasonic waves generated by a piezoelectric transducer force the membranes to displace at resonance. As a result of this actuation, droplets are ejected through the membrane orifice. We ejected water at 1.06 MHz, isopropanol at 1.14 MHz, ethyl alcohol at 1.06 MHz, and acetone at 1.04 MHz from a 20/spl times/20 single reservoir 2-D micromachined array with 160 /spl mu/m in diameter Si/sub x/N/sub y/ membranes and 10 /spl mu/m in diameter orifices. The performance of single reservoir flextensional membrane-based ejector arrays was compared to flextensional membrane-based ejector arrays with reservoirs. A 50% decrease in the required power per ejected droplet and a reduced design complexity were demonstrated over the 2-D micromachined arrays with individual reservoirs. In addition, we deposited Shipley SPR 3612 photoresist at 1.12 MHz in a dry lab environment. No spinning was done after deposition. We covered a 2/spl times/2-mm area on a wafer with a 5.5-/spl mu/m thick photoresist layer. The maximum thickness variation over the area was 0.4 /spl mu/m. Moreover, we present a directly written 1.6-/spl mu/m thick 900-/spl mu/m wide and 8-mm long homogeneous photoresist line. The photoresist thickness variation along the line was 0.2 and 0.4 /spl mu/m in vertical and horizontal directions, respectively.

Femtoliter to picoliter droplet generation for organic polymer deposition using single reservoir ejector arrays

This paper reports on dynamic analysis of an immersed single capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) cell transmitting A water loaded 24 /spl mu/m circular silicon membrane of a transducer was modeled The calculated collapse and snapback voltages were 80 V and 50 V, respectively The resonance frequency, output pressure and nonlinearity of the CMUT in three regimes of operation were determined These regimes were: a) the conventional regime in which the membrane does not make contact with the substrate, b) the collapsed regime in which the center of the membrane is in constant contact with the substrate, and c) the collapse-snapback regime in which the membrane intermittently makes contact with the substrate and releases The average membrane displacement was compared as the CMUT was operated in these regimes A displacement of 70 /spl Aring/ in the collapsed regime and 39 /spl Aring/ in conventional regime operation were predicted when a 5 V pulse was applied to the CMUT cell biased at 70 V The CMUT showed a 2/sup nd/ harmonic at -16 dB and -26 dB in conventional and collapsed regimes of operation, respectively Collapse-snapback operation provided increased output pressure at the expense of a 3/sup rd/ harmonic at -10 dB Our simulations predicted that the average output pressure at the membrane could be 90 kPa/V with collapse-snapback operation compared to 4 kPa/V with conventional operation

/pdf/dynamic-analysis-of-cmuts-in-different-regimes-of-operation-3ov1a0tilo.pdf

Dynamic analysis of CMUTs in different regimes of operation

This paper analyzes element-to-element and cell- to-cell cross-coupling in capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (cMUTs) using an interferometer. In a 1-D linear cMUT array immersed in oil, a single element was excited, and membrane displacements were measured at different positions along the array with an interferometer. Electrical measurements of the received voltage on each array element were also performed simultaneously to verify the optical measurements. The array was then covered with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layer, and the cross-coupling measurements were repeated. The cross-coupling levels for conventional and collapsed operation of the cMUT were compared. Since the cMUTs were immersed in oil, the optical measurements were corrected for acousto-optic interaction, and the results were reviewed in time-spatial and frequency- spatial domains. The main cross-coupling mechanism was due to the dispersive guided modes supported by the membrane periodicity. In both modes of operation, cross-coupling dispersion curves predicted a gradual reduction in phase velocity at higher frequencies. At lower frequencies, this phase velocity tended to approach 1480 m/s asymptotically. Better cross-coupling suppression was observed in the collapsed (-34 dB) than the conventional operation (-23 dB). The element-to-element cross-coupling experiments showed that a 5-µm PDMS layer reduced the measured cross- coupling levels down to -39 dB in the collapsed operation. were corrected to eliminate the acousto-optic interaction due to the refractive index of the oil and the pressure created in the oil (4). The optical time domain measurements were analyzed in the wave number-frequency (k-w) domain for the multi-mode wave propagation (5). Conventional and collapsed operations of the cMUT were compared, and the influence of a 5-µm polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layer covering the cMUT was investigated. The main cross-coupling mechanism was due to the dispersive guided modes. Interface waves (Stoneley-Scholte) and surface waves (Rayleigh) were relatively weak in cross-coupling (3). The dispersive guided modes were determined for conventional and collapsed operations and corresponding k-w diagrams were analyzed.

Goksen G. Yaralioglu

Papers

Capacitive membrane ultrasonic transducers with reduced bulk wave generation and method

Ultrasonic heating and temperature measurement in microfluidic channels

Femtoliter to picoliter droplet generation for organic polymer deposition using single reservoir ejector arrays

Dynamic analysis of CMUTs in different regimes of operation

Characterization of cross-coupling in capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers