title: Efficient encapsulation with plug-triggered drop formation.
abstract: Monodisperse microscale drops formed with microfluidic devices are useful for encapsulating cells, microgel particles, or even additional drops. These techniques are thus useful for applications ranging from high-throughput biology to monodisperse particle and capsule synthesis, which require encapsulation of such objects. However, it is challenging to efficiently encapsulate the objects in all drops; often, the objects are encapsulated inefficiently, resulting in many improperly filled, unusable drops. Here, we describe a phenomenon that allows very efficient encapsulation. We use the inflow of the object to plug the drop maker nozzle; the continued injection of the outer phase pinches off a drop, thereby encapsulating the object; this yields precisely one object encapsulated per drop.
authors: Department of Physics, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. adam.abate@ucsf.edu
authors: Adam R
authors: AR
authors: Abate
authors: Assaf
authors: A
authors: Rotem
authors: Julian
authors: J
authors: Thiele
authors: David A
authors: DA
authors: Weitz