Issue 7, 2007
From the journal:

Lab on a Chip

Generation of dynamic chemical signals with microfluidic C-DACs

L. Chen,a   F. Azizia  and  C. H. Mastrangelob  

a Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA
E-mail: lichen@case.edu

b Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA
E-mail: carlos.mastrangelo@case.edu

Abstract

The utilization of microfluidic “lab-on-a-chip” devices in fundamental medical research, drug discovery and clinical diagnostics has rapidly increased in the past decade. Lab-on-a-chip devices process small volumes of analytes and reagents through on-chip microfluidic signal processing circuits. This paper discusses the implementation of a basic microfluidic circuit block, the concentration digital-to-analog converter (or C-DAC) which produces discretized chemical concentrations in a constant stream of solvent. The chemical concentration is controlled by a time-varying digital word; hence C-DACs are suitable for on-chip generation of arbitrary chemical signals. A 4-bit continuous-flow C-DAC was fabricated in two-level PDMS technology and tested. Several chemical waveforms (sawtooth, cosine, and ramp) were generated at flow rates of 2 µL min−1 and frequencies of 0.6–4 mHz. The frequency cut off of this C-DAC was ∼500 mHz.

Graphical abstract: Generation of dynamic chemical signals with microfluidic C-DACs

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/B706304K
Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 Oct 2006
Accepted
11 May 2007
First published
31 May 2007

Lab Chip, 2007,7, 850-855

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Generation of dynamic chemical signals with microfluidic C-DACs

L. Chen, F. Azizi and C. H. Mastrangelo, Lab Chip, 2007, 7, 850 DOI: 10.1039/B706304K

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