Issue 9, 2021

Integration of capillary–hydrodynamic logic circuitries for built-in control over multiple droplets in microfluidic networks

Abstract

Here, we show the successful implementation of advanced sequential logic in droplet microfluidics, whose principles rely on capillary wells establishing stationary states, where droplets can communicate remotely via pressure impulses, influencing each other and switching the device states. All logic operations perform spontaneously due to the utilization of nothing more than capillary–hydrodynamic interactions, inherent for the confined biphasic flow. Our approach offers integration feasibility allowing to encode unprecedentedly long algorithms, e.g., 1000-droplet counting. This work has the potential for the advancement of liquid computers and thereby could participate in the development of the next generation of portable microfluidic systems with embedded control, enabling applications from single-cell analysis and biochemical assays to materials science.

Graphical abstract: Integration of capillary–hydrodynamic logic circuitries for built-in control over multiple droplets in microfluidic networks

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 Sep 2020
Accepted
17 Feb 2021
First published
12 Mar 2021
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Lab Chip, 2021,21, 1771-1778

Integration of capillary–hydrodynamic logic circuitries for built-in control over multiple droplets in microfluidic networks

D. Zaremba, S. Błoński and P. M. Korczyk, Lab Chip, 2021, 21, 1771 DOI: 10.1039/D0LC00900H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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