We report on a pulse laser-driven droplet generation (PLDG) mechanism that enables on-demand droplet generation at rates up to 10 000 droplets per second in a single-layer PDMS-based microfluidic device. Injected droplet volumes can be continuously tuned between 1 pL and 150 pL with less than 1% volume variation.

Electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) promises to be an important lab-on-a-chip approach for effectively manipulating droplets with electric field-controlled surface tension. Droplets manipulated in electrowetting-based devices are typically sandwiched between two parallel plates and actuated by digital electrodes. The size of pixilated electrodes limits the minimum droplet size that can be manipulated. Here, we report on a single-sided continuous optoelectrowetting (SCOEW) mechanism that enables light-patterned electrowetting modulation for continuous droplet manipulation on an open, featureless, and photoconductive surface. SCOEW overcomes the size limitation of physical pixilated electrodes by utilizing dynamic and reconfigurable optical patterns and enables the continuous transport, splitting, merging, and mixing of droplets with volumes ranging from 50 μL to 250 pL, over 5-orders of magnitude. This single-sided open configuration provides a flexible interface for integration with other microfluidic components, such as sample reservoirs through simple tubing. Light-triggered, parallel, and volume-tunable droplet injection with volume variation less than 1% has been demonstrated with SCOEW. The unique lateral field-driven optoelectrowetting mechanism also enables extremely low light intensity actuation, and droplet manipulation can be achieved by directly positioning the SCOEW chip on a LCD screen used in a laptop or portable cellular phone.

We report a high speed and high purity pulsed laser triggered fluorescence activated cell sorter (PLACS) with a sorting throughput up to 20 000 mammalian cells s⁻¹ with 37% sorting purity, 90% cell viability in enrichment mode, and >90% purity in high purity mode at 1500 cells s⁻¹ or 3000 beads s⁻¹. Fast switching (30 μs) and a small perturbation volume (∼90 pL) is achieved by a unique sorting mechanism in which explosive vapor bubbles are generated using focused laser pulses in a single layer microfluidic PDMS channel.

Technical advances in electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) over the past few years have extended our attraction to three-dimensional (3D) devices capable of providing more flexibility and functionality with larger volumetric capacity than conventional 2D planar ones. However, typical 3D EWOD devices require complex and expensive fabrication processes for patterning and wiring of pixelated electrodes that also restrict the minimum droplet size to be manipulated. Here, we present a flexible single-sided continuous optoelectrowetting (SCOEW) device which is not only fabricated by a spin-coating method without the need for patterning and wiring processes, but also enables light-driven 3D droplet manipulations. To provide photoconductive properties, previous optoelectrowetting (OEW) devices have used amorphous silicon (a-Si) typically fabricated through high-temperature processes over 300 °C such as CVD or PECVD. However, most of the commercially-available flexible substrates such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) experience serious thermal deformation under such high-temperature processes. Because of this compatibility issue of conventional OEW devices with flexible substrates, light-driven 3D droplet manipulations have not yet been demonstrated on flexible substrates. Our study overcomes this compatibility issue by using a polymer-based photoconductive material, titanium oxide phthalocyanine (TiOPc) and thus SCOEW devices can be simply fabricated on flexible substrates through a low-cost, spin-coating method. In this paper, analytical studies were conducted to understand the effects of light patterns on static contact angles and EWOD forces. For experimental validations of our study, flexible SCOEW devices were successfully fabricated through the TiOPc-based spin-coating method and light-driven droplet manipulations (e.g. transportation, merging, and splitting) have been demonstrated on various 3D terrains such as inclined, vertical, upside-down, and curved surfaces. Our flexible SCOEW technology offers the benefits of device simplicity, flexibility, and functionality over conventional EWOD and OEW devices by enabling optical droplet manipulations on a 3D featureless surface.

We report on a light-actuated, droplet based microfluidic platform enabling two-dimensional (2D) droplet manipulation on an open chamber with a single-side, featureless photoconductive surface. The droplet actuation mechanism is based on recently demonstrated floating electrode optoelectronic tweezers (FEOET), which enable light-induced dielectrophoretic forces to manipulate aqueous droplets immersed in electrically nonconductive oil, with a light intensity as low as 400 µW/cm². In this paper, we study the shape effect of optical patterns for 2D droplet actuation, and demonstrate light-actuated droplet manipulation functions including 2D droplet transport, merging, mixing, and multidroplet processing, for up to 16 droplets in parallel. Such an open chamber platform also permits easy interfacing and integration with other microfluidic structures, such as wells and close-channel based droplet devices to increase its versatility for biochemical analyses.

We report on a continuous optoelectrowetting mechanism enabling continuous high spatial resolution optical modulation of electrowetting effect on a featureless planar photoconductive amorphous silicon surface. Dynamically patterned “virtual electrode” switches voltage between the amorphous silicon layer and the dielectric layer for contact angle modulation. This device is particularly attractive for manipulating picoliter droplets. We have experimentally demonstrated trapping and moving of 10 and 50 pl droplets at a speed of 1 mm/s using a light beam.