Micro-Drops and Digital Microfluidics

8

Acoustic Methods for Manipulating Droplets

8.1 Introduction

The recent development of microfluidic systems in some sense marks a rebirth of the old discipline of hydrodynamics, however, on a much smaller scale than the one we are familiar with in our daily lives. Hence, the laws of hydrodynamics still apply, but need to be adjusted to the changed physical environment of the microscale. The regime for microfluidics is governed by strong interactions between the fluid and the outer world, be it containers, tubes, or trenches. Here, surface effects like wettability, surface tension, adhesion and cohesion, and others lead to a completely different ...