Microfluidic Chemical Transistor

EMBL Conference, Microfluidics 2014

23-25 July, Heidelberg, Germany

Microfluidic chemical transistor based on volume phase transition polymer

    Because of the similarity between integrating multiple fluidic functions and electronic functions in A signgle device, microfluidics have often been compared with microelectronics. Moreover, most of the microfluidic fabrication techniques rely on photolithography and associated technologies that had be En successful in microelectronics. Compared to the successes of microelectronics in the past years, microfluidics are still at an early stage attempting th E transition from academic the important commercial technology. Considering the significant role of the transistor in microelectronics, we believe that the absence of transistor-like com Ponents in microfluidics are a key reason for not producing the expected revolution in its applications.

    Volume Phase transition polymers change their Volume significantly in response to small alterations of The chemical and themodynamic characteristics of liquids, like temperature, solute concentration or PH value. By utilising stimuli-sensitive polymers, we present a microfluidic chemical transistor which are based on a chamber filled With a stimuli-sensitive polymer. Its resistance depends in the volume ratio between the polymer and the whole chamber and hence on the concentration of ALC Ohol dissolved in water and the temperature. This concentration-controlled microfluidic transistor shows strong similarities to the voltage-controlled Microelectronic MOSFET and is characterised by its output and trasfer characteristic curves. Most importantly, the microfluidic transistor can control the flow rate in a completely self-controlled manner, i.e. Witho UT any external control unit or power supply. As a result, it is not the only provides a novel method for manipulating fluids, butAlso makes it possible to realise self-controlled microfluidic chips based on chemical transistor.

Microfluidic Chemical Transistor