High Speed Liquid Pumping, Mixing, and Particle Entrapment With Non-Contact Microscale Heat Sources

Amar Basu, Graduate Student, University of Michigan
While a variety of methods of microfluidic flow generation have been reported, all require microfabricated substrates; furthermore, high speed flow has been difficult to achieve due to the increased friction at the microscale. This talk will discuss how high speed convective microflow patterns can be generated in thin layers of water and oil using microfabricated heat sources suspended just above the liquid surface. A dipole-shaped fluidic pattern known as a doublet has been demonstrated in water, with flow speeds of 5mm/sec, over 10x that of other non-mechanical pumping methods. Toroidal shaped vortex flows have been generated in oil, with flow speeds approaching 1.7 mm/sec. The self-circulating convective flows have been used to trap particles as well as microdroplets.
Amar Basu was born in Rochester, Michigan in 1978. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2001 and 2003, both Summa Cum Laude. As an undergraduate, Amar interned with several companies including General Motors, Silicon Graphics, and Intel's Advanced Technology Group where he helped develop the first generation of 18 micron CMOS amplifiers. He is now working towards a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and an additional M.S. in Biotechnology, both of which he plans to complete by 2006. His research interests are in developing micro and nanotechnologies for medicine, in both research and clinical settings. Presently, he is investigating applications of micromachined thermal and fluidic probes, supported by a Whitaker Foundation Biomedical Engineering Fellowship awarded to him in May 2003.