A system has been developed that allows for optical and fluidic manipulation of gametes. The optical manipulation is performed by using a single-point gradient trap with a 40× oil immersion PH3 1.3 NA objective on a Zeiss inverted microscope. The fluidic manipulation is performed by using a custom microfluidic chamber designed to fit into the short working distance between the condenser and obj...

In this paper a wearable electronic-free micro-fluidic device for the continuous monitoring of pH in sweat during exercise is described. The sensing capability is based on ionogels, ionic liquid hydrogels, containing pH sensitive dyes capable of reporting pH activity in the range from 3 to 10. Previously, we reported a flexible micro-fluidic barcode capable of measuring the pH of sweat in real ...

The design, fabrication and preliminary performance assessment of a new vapor sensor comprising a microfabricated optofluidic ring resonator (μOFRR) and its application to microscale gas chromatographic (μGC) detection of volatile organic compounds (VOC) are presented. The μOFRR combines vapor sensing and fluidic transport functions in a micro-fabricated whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonator....

The content of this paper describes the model and control of a elastic joint driven by fluidic muscles including the nonlinear behavior of the fluidic muscle, the valves and the joint dynamics. Such elastic joints have a lot advantages like passive compliance, low power to weight relation. The control of the joint is developed with the help of a professional software tool named EICASLAB which h...

We report a composite waveguide fabricated by attaching a coupling aperture to a waveguide. The acoustic impedance of the composite waveguide can be regulated by merely controlling its coupling vibrations, depending on its structure size. By changing the size to adjust the acoustic impedance of the composite waveguide at an impedance-mismatched fluidic interface, tunable sound transmission at t...

In this work, we report a novel method of fabricating Glass-PDMS-glass fluidic diode using CO2 laser ablation that avoids conventional laborious procedures such as spin coating and molding of PDMS. By using this type of fluidic diode we constructed a finger-driven microdevice that can meter and deliver (MAD) multiple solutions in parallel, and the efficiency and accuracy of the MAD function was...

This paper describes the application of a new and unconventional numerical method for computational modeling of fluidic micro-handling processes. The key requirement for modeling such processes is the ability to simulate flows with large number of complex shaped moving objects. Conventional body-conformal computational fluid dynamic (CFD) methods are not well suited for simulating such flows an...

A neuronal microneedle, a single-crystalline silicon microneedle with fluidic microchannels and microelectrodes, is developed for localized stimulation of and recording from neural cells. The neuronal microneedle delivers drugs such as excitatory amino acids at the cellular level as well as electrically records neural signals from neural cells. The fluidic behavior, the mechanical stability, an...

Integrating photonic crystals (PC) into microfluidic systems has attracted immense interest for its novel functions. However, it is still a great challenge to fabricate PC microfluidic chips rapidly with complex functions. In this work, a direct-writing colloidal PC microchannel was firstly achieved by inkjet printing and was used for the surface-tension-confined microfluidic immune assay. PC c...

This paper presents the design of a single module composing a modular soft variable stiffness manipulator for minimal access surgery. The module exploits flexible fluidic actuation for obtaining multi directional bending and elongation capabilities. A novel flexible crimped braided sheath is introduced in order to increase the performances of the flexible actuator. Granular jamming based stiffe...