Microfluidic networks: Design and simulation of pure hydrodynamic switching and medium access control

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the Hydrodynamic Controlled microfluidic Network (HCN) paradigm which is based on purely hydrodynamic microfluidic switching and medium access control. The HCN paradigm can be applied to build programmable microfluidic devices, i.e., Lab-on-a-Chips (LoCs), that by exploiting hydrodynamic effects only, route chemical or biological samples in a microfluidic network, in a controlled way. These microfluidic devices will be highly flexible and inexpensive, and thus are expected to become extremely competitive as compared to the alternative solutions for chemical and biological analysis and synthesis or cheap sensing. This paper provides the design guidelines for the microfluidic circuits implementing the switching function and the medium access control and illustrates through simulations the feasibility of the proposed idea.