The recent development of microfluidics has lead to the concept of lab-on-a-chip, where several functional blocks are combined into a single device that can perform complex manipulations and characterizations on the microscopic fluid sample. However, integration of multiple functionalities on a single device can be complicated. This a cutting-edge resource focuses on the crucial aspects of integration in microfluidic systems. It serves as a one-stop guide to designing microfluidic systems that are highly integrated and scalable. This practical book covers a wide range of critical topics, from fabrication techniques and simulation tools, to actuation and sensing functional blocks and their inter-compatibility. This unique reference outlines the benefits and drawbacks of different approaches to microfluidic integration and provides a number of clear examples of highly integrated microfluidic systems.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of flow-based, microfluidic VLSI. The authors describe and solve in a comprehensive and holistic manner practical challenges such as control synthesis, wash optimization, design for testability, and diagnosis of modern flow-based microfluidic biochips. They introduce practical solutions, based on rigorous optimization and formal models. The technical contributions presented in this book will not only shorten the product development cycle, but also accelerate the adoption and further development of modern flow-based microfluidic biochips, by facilitating the full exploitation of design complexities that are possible with current fabrication techniques.

This book presents the state-of-the-art techniques for the modeling, simulation, testing, compilation and physical synthesis of mVLSI biochips. The authors describe a top-down modeling and synthesis methodology for the mVLSI biochips, inspired by microelectronics VLSI methodologies. They introduce a modeling framework for the components and the biochip architecture, and a high-level microfluidic protocol language. Coverage includes a topology graph-based model for the biochip architecture, and a sequencing graph to model for biochemical application, showing how the application model can be obtained from the protocol language. The techniques described facilitate programmability and automation, enabling developers in the emerging, large biochip market.

This book describes automatic methods for the design of droplet microfluidic networks. The authors discuss simulation and design methods which support the design process of droplet microfluidics in general, as well as design methods for a dedicated droplet routing mechanism, namely passive droplet routing. The methods discussed allow for simulating a microfluidic design on a high-abstraction level, which facilitates early validation of whether a design works as intended, automatically dimensioning a microfluidic design, so that constraints like flow conditions are satisfied, and automatically generating meander designs for the respective needs and fabrication settings. Dedicated methods for passive droplet routing are discussed and allow for designing application-specific architectures for a given set of experiments, as well as generating droplet sequences realizing the respective experiments. Together, these methods provide a comprehensive “toolbox" for designers working on droplet microfluidic networks in general and an integrated design flow for the passive droplet routing mechanism in particular. Provides both a comprehensive “toolbox" for designers working on droplet microfluidic networks in general and an integrated design flow for the passive droplet routing mechanism in particular; Describes for the first time CAD methods for droplet microfluidic networks, along with the first integrated design process; Includes open source implementations, in order to reach the largest possible user group within the domain of microfluidics.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Optofluidics 2015" that was published in Micromachines

This book covers the state-of-the-art research on molecular biology assays and molecular techniques enabled or enhanced by microfluidic platforms. Topics covered include microfluidic methods for cellular separations and single cell studies, droplet-based approaches to study protein expression and forensics, and microfluidic in situ hybridization for RNA analysis. Key molecular biology studies using model organisms are reviewed in detail. This is an ideal book for students and researchers in the microfluidics and molecular biology fields as well as engineers working in the biotechnology industry. This book also: Reviews exhaustively the latest techniques for single-cell genetic, epigenetic, metabolomic, and proteomic analysis Illustrates microfluidic approaches for inverse metabolic engineering, as well as analysis of circulating exosomes Broadens readers’ understanding of microfluidics convection-based PCR technology, microfluidic RNA-seq, and microfluidics for robust mobile diagnostics

Droplet microfluidics has dramatically developed in the past decade and has been established as a microfluidic technology that can translate into commercial products. Its rapid development and adoption have relied not only on an efficient stabilizing system (oil and surfactant), but also on a library of modules that can manipulate droplets at a high-throughput. Droplet microfluidics is a vibrant field that keeps evolving, with advances that span technology development and applications. Recent examples include innovative methods to generate droplets, to perform single-cell encapsulation, magnetic extraction, or sorting at an even higher throughput. The trend consists of improving parameters such as robustness, throughput, or ease of use. These developments rely on a firm understanding of the physics and chemistry involved in hydrodynamic flow at a small scale. Finally, droplet microfluidics has played a pivotal role in biological applications, such as single-cell genomics or high-throughput microbial screening, and chemical applications. This Special Issue will showcase all aspects of the exciting field of droplet microfluidics, including, but not limited to, technology development, applications, and open-source systems.

This book describes a comprehensive framework for hardware/software co-design, optimization, and use of robust, low-cost, and cyberphysical digital microfluidic systems. Readers with a background in electronic design automation will find this book to be a valuable reference for leveraging conventional VLSI CAD techniques for emerging technologies, e.g., biochips or bioMEMS. Readers from the circuit/system design community will benefit from methods presented to extend design and testing techniques from microelectronics to mixed-technology microsystems. For readers from the microfluidics domain, this book presents a new design and development strategy for cyberphysical microfluidics-based biochips suitable for large-scale bioassay applications. • Takes a transformative, “cyberphysical” approach towards achieving closed-loop and sensor feedback-driven biochip operation under program control; • Presents a “physically-aware” system reconfiguration technique that uses sensor data at intermediate checkpoints to dynamically reconfigure biochips; • Enables readers to simplify the structure of biochips, while facilitating the “general-purpose” use of digital microfluidic biochips for a wider range of applications.

ImmunoPhysics (ImmPhys) and ImmunoEngineering (ImmPhysEng), are two cross-disciplinary fields. ImmPhysEng aims to unravel quantitatively the immune-system function and regulation in health and disease. Whereas ImmPhys study and assess the physical basis of the immune response, ImmEng pursues its control and prediction. Ultimately, the overarching goal of these disciplines is to facilitate the development of therapeutic interventions to more precisely modulate and control the compromised immune response during diseases. Lately, these disciplines are becoming more popular and as such, the number of publications applying physical or engineering tools to understand the immune response is increasing. Nevertheless, there is still no scientific forum compiling the ImmPhysEng research breakthroughs. Possibly the biggest burden is to stimulate a fluent communication and syntony between a physicist or engineer and an immunologist.

This informative book focuses on newly developed functional materials and their applications for electronic and spintronic devices. Electronic devices have become a part of our daily modern life, involving mobile phones, data storage, computers, and satellites, and there is relentless growth in microelectronics. This volume covers the topics of oxide materials for electronics devices, new materials, and new properties, especially in newly developed research areas, such as oxide magnetic semiconductors and two-dimensional electron gas. Key features: Emphasizes functional materials for electronic devices, including two-dimensional materials, two-dimensional electron gas, multiferroic materials, memory materials, sensor materials, and spintronic materials. Describes the basics as well as new developments of these functional materials and devices.