Nano- and microfluidics

Abstract

The field of nano- and microfluidics emerged at the end of the 1990s parallel to the demand for smaller and smaller containers and channels for chemical, biochemical and medical applications such as blood and DNS analysis [1], gene sequencing or proteomics [2, 3]. Since then, new journals and conferences have been launched and meanwhile, about two decades later, a variety of microfluidic applications are on the market. Briefly, 'the small flow becomes mainstream' [4].Nevertheless, research in nano- and microfluidics is more than downsizing the spatial dimensions. For liquids on the nanoscale, surface and interface phenomena grow in importance and may even dominate the behavior in some systems. The studies collected in this special issue all concentrate on these type of systems and were part ot the priority programme SPP1164 'Nano- and Microfluidics' of the German Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). The priority programme was initiated in 2002 by Hendrik Kuhlmann and myself and was launched in 2004.Friction between a moving liquid and a solid wall may, for instance, play an important role so that the usual assumption of a no-slip boundary condition is no longer valid. Likewise, the dynamic deformations of soft objects like polymers, vesicles or capsules in flow arise from the subtle interplay between the (visco-)elasticity of the object and the viscous stresses in the surrounding fluid and, potentially, the presence of structures confining the flow like channels.Consequently, new theories were developed (see articles in this issue by Münch and Wagner, Falk and Mecke, Bonthuis et al, Finken et al, Almenar and Rauscher, Straube) and experiments were set up to unambiguously demonstrate deviations from bulk, or 'macro', behavior (see articles in this issue by Wolff et al, Vinogradova and Belyaev, Hahn et al, Seemann et al, Grüner and Huber, Müller-Buschbaum et al, Gutsche et al, Braunmüller et al, Laube et al, Brücker, Nottebrock et al, Uhlmann et al and articles to be published in a later issue by Bäumchen and Jacobs, Walz et al). Moreover, simulations accounted for these new phenomena (see articles in this issue by Leonforte et al, Hyväaluoma et al, Varnik et al, Chelakkot et al, Litvinov et al and the article to be published in a later issue by Boettcher et al), since commercial software packages typically override these special yet fundamentally new conditions. For future applications, the know-how can be used, for instance, to manipulate particles or molecules in microfluidic systems (see articles in this issue by Nottebrock et al, Straube, Uhlmann et al and the article to be published in a later issue by Boettcher et al).The articles have been divided into four subsections: 'Probing the boundary condition', 'Flow over or in special geometries', 'Soft objects in fluid flow' and 'Manipulating flow'. Many articles, however, cover more than only one aspect and could easily be listed under one of the other subsections. Three articles, two listed in the section 'Probing the boundary condition' and one listed in 'Manipulating flow', could not be included and will be published in a later issue (Bäumchen and Jacobs, Walz et al, Boettcher et al).The collection of studies gives a comprehensive overview of what has been achieved to 'bridge the gap between molecular motion and continuum flow', which was the mission of the programme and which will now form a sound platform for continuative studies.