Here droplet oscillation and continuous pumping are demonstrated by asymmetric electrowetting on an open surface with embedded electrodes powered by a square wave electrical signal without control circuits. The polarity effect of electrowetting on an SU-8 and Teflon coated electrode is investigated, and it is found that the θ–V (contact angle–applied voltage) curve is asymmetric along the V = 0 axis by sessile drop and coplanar electrode experiments. A systematic deviation of measured contact angles from the theoretical ones is observed when the electrode beneath the droplet is negatively biased. In the sessile drop experiment, up to a 10° increment of contact angle is measured on a negatively biased electrode. In addition, a coplanar electrode experiment is designed to examine the contact angles at the same applied potential but opposite polarities on two sides of one droplet at the same time. The design of the coplanar electrodes is then expanded to oscillate and transport droplets on square-wave-powered symmetric (square) and asymmetric (polygon) electrodes to demonstrate manipulation capability on an open surface. The frequency of oscillation and the speed of transportation are determined by the frequency of the applied square wave and the pitch of the electrodes. Droplets with different volumes are tested by square waves of varied frequencies and amplitudes. The 1.0 µl droplet is successfully transported on a device with a loop of 24 electrodes continuously at a speed up to 23.6 mm s⁻¹ when a 9 Hz square wave is applied.

We present a long (204 mm), curved (curvature of 0.04 mm⁻¹), and closed droplet pathway in “droplet-on-a-wristband” (DOW) with the designed digital microfluidic modular interfaces for electric signal and droplet connections based on the study of electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) in inclined and curved devices. Instead of using sealed and leakage-proof pipes to transmit liquid and pumping pressure, the demonstrated modular interface for electrowetting-driven digital microfluidics provides simply electric and fluidic connections between two adjacent parallel-plate modules which are easy-to-attach/detach, showing the advantages of using droplets for microfluidic connections between modules. With the previously reported digital-to-channel interfaces (Abdelgawad et al., Lab Chip, 2009, 9, 1046–1051), the chip-to-chip interface presented here would be further applied to continuous microfluidics. Droplet pumping across a single top plate gap and through a modular interface with two gaps between overlapping plates are investigated. To ensure the droplet transportation in the DOW, we actuate droplets against gravity in an inclined or curved device fabricated on flexible PET substrates prepared by a special razor blade cutter and low temperature processes. Pumping a 2.5 μl droplet at a speed above 105 mm s⁻¹ is achieved by sequentially switching the entire 136 driving electrodes (1.5 mm × 1.5 mm) along the four flexible modules of the DOW fabricated by 4-inch wafer facilities.

Current human fertilization in vitro (IVF) bypasses the female oviduct and manually inseminates, fertilizes and cultivates embryos in a static microdrop containing appropriate chemical compounds. A microfluidic microchannel system for IVF is considered to provide an improved in-vivo-mimicking environment to enhance the development in a culture system for an embryo before implantation. We demonstrate a novel digitalized microfluidic device powered with electrowetting on a dielectric (EWOD) to culture an embryo in vitro in a single droplet in a microfluidic environment to mimic the environment in vivo for development of the embryo and to culture the embryos with good development and live births. Our results show that the dynamic culture powered with EWOD can manipulate a single droplet containing one mouse embryo and culture to the blastocyst stage. The rate of embryo cleavage to a hatching blastocyst with a dynamic culture is significantly greater than that with a traditional static culture (p<0.05). The EWOD chip enhances the culture of mouse embryos in a dynamic environment. To test the reproductive outcome of the embryos collected from an EWOD chip as a culture system, we transferred embryos to pseudo-pregnant female mice and produced live births. These results demonstrate that an EWOD-based microfluidic device is capable of culturing mammalian embryos in a microfluidic biological manner, presaging future clinical application.