We study a recently demonstrated AC electrokinetic technique for manipulation and concentration of colloidal particles on an electrode surface. The technique uses indium tin oxide (ITO)-based parallel-plate electrodes on which highly localized infrared (1064 nm) laser illumination is shone. We show that the highly localized laser illumination leads to a highly nonuniform heating of the electrode substrate, which in turn drives an electrothermal microvortex resulting in a rapid transport of particles toward the illuminated site. Hundreds of polystyrene particles, with diameters ranging from 2.0 to 0.1 μm, suspended in a low conductivity solution (2.0 mS/m) could be aggregated at selected locations on the electrode by activating the laser illumination at suitable AC frequencies. Subsequent deactivation of the laser illumination causes the particles to scatter, and we explore this dynamical behavior for 1.0 μm particles using Delaunay tessellations and high-speed videography. We establish that drag from the electrothermal microvortex acts against a repulsive force, which decreases with increasing AC frequency, to create stable particle clusters. Moreover, experimentally we show that this particle capturing technique can be characterized by a critical frequency: a frequency at which the captured colloidal particle cluster becomes unstable and particles are carried away into the bulk by the electrothermal microvortex. This critical frequency increases with decreasing particle diameter for similar particles. For 0.1 μm particles, comparison of aggregation at different AC frequencies is achieved by the comparison of fluorescent intensity profiles of the aggregations.
This paper addresses the effects of microchannel geometry with electrically insulating posts on a particle flow driven by electrokinesis and dielectrophoresis. An in-house numerical program is developed using a numerical model proposed in literature to predict particle flows in a microchannel with a circular post array. The numerical program is validated by comparing the results of the present study to those in the literature. Results obtained from a Monte-Carlo simulation confirm the three particle flow types driven by an external DC electric field: electrokinetic flow, streaming dielectrophoretic flow, and trapping dielectrophoretic flow. In addition, we study the effects of electrokinetic and dielectrophoretic forces on particle transports by introducing a ratio of lateral to longitudinal forces exerted on a particle. As a result, we propose an improved microchannel geometry to enhance particle transports across electrokinetic streamlines for a given power dissipation. The improved microchannel has a shorter longitudinal spacing between the circular posts than a reference microchannel. We also discuss the critical values of dimensionless variables that distinguish the three particle flow types for both improved and reference microchannels.
This communication first demonstrates bio-compatibility of a recently developed opto-electrokinetic manipulation technique, using microorganisms. Aggregation, patterning, translation, trapping and size-based separation of microorganisms performed with the technique firmly establishes its usefulness for development of a high-performance on-chip bioassay system.
Abstract:In this study, we investigated geometrical characteristics of the inkjet-printed lines with non-zero receding contact angle (CA) on plasma-treated substrates in terms of various printing variables and analyzed the fluidic behavior and hydrodynamic instability involved in the line formation process. The printing variables included surface energy, droplet overlap ratio, printing frequency, a number of ink droplets, substrate temperature and printing procedures. For the study, a colloidal suspension containing 56 wt % silver nanoparticles in tetradecane solvent was used as a printing ink. It has electrical resistivity of 4.7 µΩ·cm. The substrates were obtained by performing a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process with C 4 F 8 and O 2 under various treatment conditions. As results of the experiments, the surface shape and pattern of the inkjet-printed Ag lines were dominantly influenced by the surface energy of the substrates, among the printing variables. Accordingly even when the receding CA was non-zero, bulging instability of the lines occurred forming separate circular patterns or regular bulges connected by ridges. It is a new finding of this study, which is completely different with the bulging instability of inkjet lines with zero receding CA specified by previous researches. The bulging instability decreased by increasing surface temperature of the substrates or employing interlacing procedure instead of continuous procedure for printing. The interlacing procedure also was advantageous to fabricate thick and narrow Ag lines with well-defined shape through overprinting on a hydrophobic substrate. These results will contribute greatly to not only the production of various printed electronics containing high-aspect-ratio structures but also the improvement of working performance of the devices.
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