Experimental study on a single particle trap with a pneumatic vibrator matrix

Abstract

This paper describes a fundamental study on a pneumatic particle trap with a vibrator matrix. The particle trap device consisted of pneumatic vibrators and a trap chamber used to trap a particle. The entire structure was fabricated from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The particle in the trap chamber was manipulated and trapped in the equilibrium region by exploiting the geometrical symmetry of the vibrators. The x-axial velocity of the viscous fluid induced by the deformation of the flexible diaphragms was eliminated or minimized at the center of two vibrators. Therefore, a particle could be trapped in the central capturing region by two or four vibrators. The trapping of static and dynamic single particles was observed to verify the proposed operational method.

Pneumatic and hydraulic microactuators: a review

“…This deflection is often used to grasp objects [6,7] or as active element in micropumps, valves or mixers (figure 1(1)) [1,[8][9][10]. Alternatively, they are often applied in lab-on-achip devices for sorting and trapping cells [11][12][13][14][15]. Due to the ease of fabricating these actuators with basic silicon processing, reports on these actuators and their integration in MEMS were already published in the 1980s [16,17].…”

“…(13) Reprinted with permission from [125]. (14) Reprinted with permission from [133]. (15) Reprinted from [4], copyright (1995), with permission from SPIE.…”

3D visualization of convection patterns in lab-on-chip with open microfluidic outlet

“…Several strategies commonly used in research have been summarized in a review by (Desai et al 2007). They include the use of electric fields and dielectrophoresis (Abonnenc et al 2005;Leu et al 2005), optical trapping (Chiou et al 2005;Nahmias et al 2005), mechanical control through MEMSbased (Thielecke et al 2005) or local pressure approaches (Jeong and Konishi 2009), and the use of mixed methods (Lettieri et al 2003;Shackman et al 2007). It is well known that all common technologies have a strong impact both on the particles and on the surrounding medium, hence limiting the applicability of these techniques.…”

Collaborative micromanipulation using multiple bubble microrobots in an open reservoir

“…Bacteria‐propelled microrobots based on the motility of the bacteria can operate in electrically conductive fluids and open reservoirs, but these have a limited degree of controllability, and primarily use global control of multiple microrobots [18]. Pneumatic actuation has also been used for particle manipulation in closed fluidic chambers, but this may not be suitable for open reservoirs [19, 20].…”