Microfabricated integrated circuits revolutionized computation by vastly reducing the space, labor, and time required for calculations. Microfluidic systems hold similar promise for the large-scale automation of chemistry and biology, suggesting the possibility of numerous experiments performed rapidly and in parallel, while consuming little reagent. While it is too early to tell whether such a vision will be realized, significant progress has been achieved, and various applications of significant scientific and practical interest have been developed. Here a review of the physics of small volumes (nanoliters) of fluids is presented, as parametrized by a series of dimensionless numbers expressing the relative importance of various physical phenomena. Specifically, this review explores the Reynolds number Re, addressing inertial effects; the Peclet number Pe, which concerns convective and diffusive transport; the capillary number Ca expressing the importance of interfacial tension; the Deborah, Weissenberg, and elasticity numbers De, Wi, and El, describing elastic effects due to deformable microstructural elements like polymers; the Grashof and Rayleigh numbers Gr and Ra, describing density-driven flows; and the Knudsen number, describing the importance of noncontinuum molecular effects. Furthermore, the long-range nature of viscous flows and the small device dimensions inherent in microfluidics mean that the influence of boundaries is typically significant. A variety of strategies have been developed to manipulate fluids by exploiting boundary effects; among these are electrokinetic effects, acoustic streaming, and fluid-structure interactions. The goal is to describe the physics behind the rich variety of fluid phenomena occurring on the nanoliter scale using simple scaling arguments, with the hopes of developing an intuitive sense for this occasionally counterintuitive world.

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Microfluidics: Fluid physics at the nanoliter scale

Electrowetting has become one of the most widely used tools for manipulating tiny amounts of liquids on surfaces. Applications range from 'lab-on-a-chip' devices to adjustable lenses and new kinds of electronic displays. In the present article, we review the recent progress in this rapidly growing field including both fundamental and applied aspects. We compare the various approaches used to derive the basic electrowetting equation, which has been shown to be very reliable as long as the applied voltage is not too high. We discuss in detail the origin of the electrostatic forces that induce both contact angle reduction and the motion of entire droplets. We examine the limitations of the electrowetting equation and present a variety of recent extensions to the theory that account for distortions of the liquid surface due to local electric fields, for the finite penetration depth of electric fields into the liquid, as well as for finite conductivity effects in the presence of AC voltage. The most prominent failure of the electrowetting equation, namely the saturation of the contact angle at high voltage, is discussed in a separate section. Recent work in this direction indicates that a variety of distinct physical effects?rather than a unique one?are responsible for the saturation phenomenon, depending on experimental details. In the presence of suitable electrode patterns or topographic structures on the substrate surface, variations of the contact angle can give rise not only to continuous changes of the droplet shape, but also to discontinuous morphological transitions between distinct liquid morphologies. The dynamics of electrowetting are discussed briefly. Finally, we give an overview of recent work aimed at commercial applications, in particular in the fields of adjustable lenses, display technology, fibre optics, and biotechnology-related microfluidic devices.

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Electrowetting: from basics to applications

We describe devices in which optics and fluidics are used synergistically to synthesize novel functionalities. Fluidic replacement or modification leads to reconfigurable optical systems, whereas the implementation of optics through the microfluidic toolkit gives highly compact and integrated devices. We categorize optofluidics according to three broad categories of interactions: fluid–solid interfaces, purely fluidic interfaces and colloidal suspensions. We describe examples of optofluidic devices in each category.

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Developing optofluidic technology through the fusion of microfluidics and optics

At present, flexible displays are an important focus of research1,2,3 Further development of large, flexible displays requires a cost-effective manufacturing process for the active-matrix backplane, which contains one transistor per pixel One way to further reduce costs is to integrate (part of) the display drive circuitry, such as row shift registers, directly on the display substrate Here, we demonstrate flexible active-matrix monochrome electrophoretic displays based on solution-processed organic transistors on 25-μm-thick polyimide substrates The displays can be bent to a radius of 1 cm without significant loss in performance Using the same process flow we prepared row shift registers With 1,888 transistors, these are the largest organic integrated circuits reported to date More importantly, the operating frequency of 5 kHz is sufficiently high to allow integration with the display operating at video speed This work therefore represents a major step towards 'system-on-plastic'

Flexible active-matrix displays and shift registers based on solution-processed organic transistors.

We have fabricated pentacene organic thin film transistors with spin-coated polymer gate dielectric layers, including cross-linked polyvinylphenol and a polyvinylphenol-based copolymer, and obtained devices with excellent electrical characteristics, including carrier mobility as large as 3 cm2/V s, subthreshold swing as low as 1.2 V/decade, and on/off current ratio of 105. For comparison, we have also fabricated pentacene transistors using thermally grown silicon dioxide as the gate dielectric and obtained carrier mobilities as large as 1 cm2/V s and subthreshold swing as low as 0.5 V/decade.

High-mobility polymer gate dielectric pentacene thin film transistors

This letter describes the monolithic integration of rubber-stamped thin-film organic transistors with polymer-dispersed liquid crystals (PDLCs) to create a multipixel, flexible display with plastic substrates. We report the electro-optic switching behavior of the PDLCs as driven by the organic transistors, and we show that our displays operate robustly under flexing and have a contrast comparable to that of newsprint.

Monolithically integrated, flexible display of polymer-dispersed liquid crystal driven by rubber-stamped organic thin-film transistors

We describe a class of active, tunable optical fiber that incorporates multiple microfluidic plugs into interior fiber microchannels. The propagation characteristics of certain optical modes of these fiber waveguides can be usefully manipulated by controlling the positions and optical properties of these plugs, using actuators and pumps formed on the fiber surface. These hybrid microfluidic/silica structures offer versatile tuning capabilities in a format that preserves the advantages of conventional, passive optical fiber. As an example, we report an all-fiber, narrowband filter, whose transmission wavelength and attenuation are independently adjustable via microfluidic tuning.

Tunable microfluidic optical fiber

Tunable and Latchable Liquid Microlens with Photopolymerizable Components

We have developed an approach for using electrowetting actuation in recirculating fluidic channels to achieve dynamic tuning of optical fiber structures. The electrically controlled and fully reversible motion of the fluids and lubricants in these channels alters the refractive index profile experienced by the optical waveguide modes of the fiber. When combined with in-fiber gratings and etched fibers, this fluidic system yields dynamically adjustable narrow and broadband fiber filters, respectively. The nonmechanical operation of these systems, their ability to support switching speeds on the order of milliseconds, and their excellent optical characteristics indicate a promising potential for electrowetting-actuated fluidic tuning in optical fiber devices and other photonic components.

Peter Mach

Papers

Monolithically integrated, flexible display of polymer-dispersed liquid crystal driven by rubber-stamped organic thin-film transistors

Tunable microfluidic optical fiber

Tunable and Latchable Liquid Microlens with Photopolymerizable Components

Dynamic tuning of optical waveguides with electrowetting pumps and recirculating fluid channels

Tunable devices based on dynamic positioning of micro-fluids in micro-structured optical fiber