Milking liquid nano-droplets by an IR laser: a new modality for the visualization of electric field lines
Year: 2013
Authors: Vespini V., Coppola S., Grilli S., Paturzo M., Ferraro P.
Autors Affiliation: Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (CNR-INO), Via Campi Flegrei 34–80078 Pozzuoli (NA), Italy
Abstract: Liquid handling at micron- and nano-scale is of paramount importance in many fields of application such as biotechnology and biochemistry. In fact, the microfluidics technologies play an important role in lab-on-a-chip devices and, in particular, the dispensing of liquid droplets is a required functionality. Different approaches have been developed for manipulating, dispensing and controlling nano-droplets under a wide variety of configurations. Here we demonstrate that nano-droplets can be drawn from liquid drop or film reservoirs through a sort of milking effect achieved by the absorption of IR laser radiation into a pyroelectric crystal. The generation of the pyroelectric field induced by the IR laser is calculated numerically and a specific experiment has been designed to visualize the electric field stream lines that are responsible for the liquid milking effect. The experiments performed are expected to open a new route for the visualization, measure and characterization procedures in the case of electrohydrodynamic applications.
Journal/Review: MEASUREMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Volume: 24 (4) Pages from: 45203-1 to: 45203-6
KeyWords: IR laser; electrohydrodynamic (EHD)DOI: 10.1088/0957-0233/24/4/045203Citations: 10data from “WEB OF SCIENCE” (of Thomson Reuters) are update at: 2024-11-17References taken from IsiWeb of Knowledge: (subscribers only)Connecting to view paper tab on IsiWeb: Click hereConnecting to view citations from IsiWeb: Click here