title: Periodic microfluidic bubbling oscillator: insight into the stability of two-phase microflows.
abstract: This Letter describes a periodically oscillating foam flow in a microfluidic device. For constant input parameters, both the produced bubble volume and the flow rate vary over a factor of two. We make explicit the link between the foam topology alternance and flow rate changes, and construct a retroaction model where bubbles still present downstream determine the volume of new bubbles, in agreement with experiment. This gives insight into the various parameters important to maintain monodispersity and at the same time shows a method to achieve controlled polydispersity.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Spectrométrie Physique, Boîte Postale 87, F-38402 St Martin d'Hères Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Jan-Paul
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Raven
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Marmottant
mesh_terms: D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques; D044085:Microfluidics; D008962:Models, Theoretical