title: USB-driven microfluidic chips on printed circuit boards.
abstract: A technology is presented to fabricate a microfluidic chip in which the microchannels and the microelectrodes of sensors are integrated directly into the copper sheet on a printed circuit board. Then, we demonstrate an application of the generation of oil-in-water and water-in-oil emulsion droplets on this microfluidic chip driven by a USB interface, and the droplet size is detected by the microelectrodes on the downstream microchannel. The integration of the microfluidic chip is improved by the direct connection of the channels to the microelectrodes of the driving unit and of the sensors on the same substrate, and it is a promising way to integrate microfluidics into a more complex micro electrical-mechanical system (MEMS).
authors.affiliation: School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China. lijiang@ustb.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jiang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Yixuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Enkai
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Haosheng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D003300:Copper / Q000737:chemistry; D025802:Electric Capacitance; D055617:Micro-Electrical-Mechanical Systems / Q000295:instrumentation; D008839:Microelectrodes; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D009821:Oils / Q000737:chemistry; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D009821:Oils; D014867:Water; D003300:Copper