Graphene based photo-detecting has received great attentions and the performance of such detector is stretching to both ends of high sensitivity and ultra-fast response. However, limited by the current photo-gating mechanism, the price for achieving ultra-high sensitivity is sacrificing the response time. Detecting weak signal within short response time is crucial especially in applications such as optical positioning, remote sensing, and biomedical imaging. In this work, we bridge the gap between ultra-fast response and ultra-high sensitivity by employing a graphene/SiO 2 /lightly-doped-Si architecture with revolutionary interfacial gating mechanism. Such device is capable to detect < 1 nW signal (with responsivity of ~1000 A W -1 ) and the spectral response extends from visible to near-infrared. More importantly, the photoresponse time of our device has been pushed to ~400 ns. The current device structure does not need complicated fabrication process and is fully compatible with the silicon technology. This work will not only open up a route to graphene-based high performance optoelectronic devices, but also have great potential in ultra-fast weak signal detection.
Inertial microfluidics has gained significant attention since first being proposed in 2007 owing to the advantages of simplicity, high throughput, precise manipulation, and freedom from an external field. Superior performance...
Elasto-inertial focusing in viscoelastic fluids has attracted increasing interest in recent years due to its potential applications in particle counting and sorting. However, current investigations of the elasto-inertial focusing mechanisms have mainly been focused on simple straight channels with little attention being paid to curved channels. Herein, we experimentally explore the elasto-inertial focusing behaviors of particles in spiral microfluidic channels over a wide range of flow rates, channel aspect ratios and channel radii. As compared with those observed in inertial microfluidics without viscoelasticity, the particle focusing pattern in our spiral elasto-inertial microfluidic system appears in a more interesting manner due to the complex coupling of elasticity, inertia and Dean flow effects. On the basis of the obtained data, the underlying mechanics and force competition behind the focusing behaviors are analyzed. In addition, for the first time, we propose a six-stage process model illustrating the particle focusing process in Dean-coupled elasto-inertial flows with increasing flow rate. It is interesting to find that the Dean drag force makes a significant contribution to particle focusing only at high flow rates and finally shifts the particle focusing positions into the outer channel region. Through carefully balancing the forces acting on particles, single-line 3D focusing can also be achieved at a throughput level of ∼100 μl min(-1), which is much higher than those in most existing studies. We envision that this improved understanding of the particle focusing mechanisms would provide helpful insights into the design and operation of spiral elasto-inertial microfluidic systems.
We report here a novel two-stage i-DLD sorter through coupling inertial microfluidics with deterministic lateral displacement (DLD), allowing for precise, continuous, and size-based cell separation. The first stage spiral inertial microfluidic sorter is responsible for removing the overwhelming majority of background blood cells at a high-throughput manner. The precise and flow-rate insensitive DLD sorter with triangular posts serves as the second stage sorter which further removes the residual blood cells for obtaining high-purity tumor cells. After demonstrating the conceptual design, we characterize the performances of our two-stage i-DLD sorter for the separation of differently sized particles and cells. The characterization results show that a 100% complete separation of 15 and 7 μm particles was achieved, whereas a separation efficiency of over 99.9% and a target sample purity of 93.59% was realized for the separation of differently sized cells. Finally, we successfully apply our sorter for the separation of rare tumor cells from the diluted whole blood or WBCs at good performances. Our two-stage i-DLD sorter offers numerous advantages of label- and external field-free operation, high-efficiency and high-reliability separation, and high-throughput processing without clogging, and is promising as a potential tool for precise cell separation in low-resource settings.
In this work, we design and fabricate a miniaturized spiral-shaped microchannel device which can be used for high-throughput particle/cell ordering, enrichment, and purification. To probe into the flow rate regulation mechanism, an experimental investigation is carried out on the focusing behaviors of particles with significantly different sizes in this device. A complete picture of the focusing position shifting process is unfolded to clarify the confusing results obtained from flow regimes with different dominant forces in past research. Specifically, with the increase of the flow rate, particles are observed to first move towards the inner wall under the dominant inertial migration, then stabilize at a specific position and finally shift away from the inner wall due to the alternation of the dominant force. Novel phenomena of focusing instability, co-focusing, and focusing position interchange of differently sized particles are also observed and investigated. Based on the obtained experimental data, we develop and validate, for the first time, a five-stage model of the particle focusing process with increasing flow rate for interpreting particle behaviors in terms of the competition between inertial lift and Dean drag forces. These new experimental findings and the proposed process model provide an important supplement to the existing mechanism of inertial particle flow and enable more flexible and precise particle manipulation. Additionally, we examine the focusing behaviors of bioparticles with a polydisperse size distribution to validate the explored mechanisms and thus help realize efficient enrichment and purification of these particles.
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