Suk Tai Chang, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, Vesselin N. Paunov, University of Hull, Hull, United Kingdom, Dimiter N. Petsev, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, and Orlin D. Velev, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC.
We demonstrated earlier how miniature semiconductor diodes could self-propel by harvesting electric energy from external AC fields and converting it to mechanical propulsion on the microscale. Here we report how this mechanism can be used in new types of microfluidic devices. Miniature diodes embedded into microfluidic channel walls could act as distributed pumps or mixers powered by a global external field. The millimeter-sized diodes generate DC fields across their electrodes as a result of rectification of the external AC field. The resulting localized electroosmotic flux on the surface of diodes evokes an overall flow in the microfluidic channel in the direction of either the cathode or the anode depending on their surface charge. The flow velocity linearly increases with applied voltage, but does not depend on the frequency of the field, which could eliminate problems with vortices in areas of non-uniform field that often occur in other AC electrohydrodynamic pumps. The combined application of AC and DC fields in our microfluidic chip allows efficient separation of particles with small differences in their charges or size. This localized-electroosmotic flow between the diodes in the channel wall could also be used in efficient controllable microfluidic mixers. This research may establish the foundation of new actively controlled nanofluidic-electronic chips for manipulating liquids, solutes and analytes at the nanoscale.

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www.che.ncsu.edu/velevgroup/suk_tai3.htm