Flow resistance for microfluidic logic operations

Abstract

Control of relative flow resistance is used for the actuation of both one- and two-input microfluidic “logical gates”. By taking advantage of system nonlinearities and despite the linear response of laminar flows associated with these length scales, a number of operators including the NOT, AND, OR, XOR, NOR, and NAND are demonstrated. Because these gates can be actuated simultaneously they can be combined to form more complicated devices such as a half adder. This approach is therefore flexible and illustrates that any macro- or microscale technique that can alter flow resistance can be used as the basis of a fluid-based logical micro-operator.