Traffic of pairs of drops in microfluidic ladder networks with fore-aft structural asymmetry

作者：Maddala Jeevan; Wang William S; Vanapalli Siva A^*; Rengaswamy Raghunathan

来源：Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, 2013, 14(1-2): 337-344.

DOI：10.1007/s10404-012-1054-z

• Droplet spacing
• Microfluidic networks
• Non-linear dynamics
• Passive control

We investigate the dynamics of pairs of drops in microfluidic ladder networks with slanted bypasses, which break the fore-aft structural symmetry of the network. Our analytical results indicate that unlike symmetric ladder networks, structural asymmetry introduced by a single slanted bypass can be used to modulate the relative drop spacing, enabling them to contract, synchronize, expand, or even flip at the ladder exit. Our experiments confirm all these behaviors predicted by theory. Numerical analysis further shows that while ladder networks containing several identical bypasses are limited to nearly linear transformation of input delay between drops, combination of forward and backward slanted bypasses can cause significant nonlinear transformation enabling coding and decoding of input delays.

• 出版日期2013-1