Micromachines, Volume 10, Issue 11

Organs-on-chips are microfluidic devices typically fabricated from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Since PDMS has many attractive properties including high optical clarity and compliance, PDMS is very useful for cell culture applications; however, PDMS...

One of the reasons why commercial application of surface acoustic wave (SAW) atomization is not possible is due to the condensation of aerosol droplets generated during atomization, which drip on the interdigitated transducer (IDT), thereby causing e...

Incorporating optical methods into implantable neural sensing devices is a challenging approach for brain–machine interfacing. Specifically, voltage-sensitive dye (VSD) imaging is a powerful tool enabling visualization of the network activity of thou...

Vascular stenosis is always associated with hemodynamic changes, especially shear stress alterations. Herein, bi-conical shaped microvessels were developed through flexibly and precisely controlled templated methods for hydrogel blood-vessel-like mic...

In this work, to evaluate the influence of the threshold on the dynamic contact process, five models (number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) with different thresholds were proposed and fabricated with surface micromachining technology. The contact time and response t...

This paper presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of an inductive complementary metal oxide semiconductor micro-electromechanical systems (CMOS-MEMS) accelerometer with on-chip digital output based on LC oscillators. While most MEMS a...

The stretchable sensor has been considered as the most important component in a wearable device. However, it is still a great challenge to develop a highly sensitive textile-based strain sensor with good flexibility, excellent skin affinity, and larg...

Micro-stereolithography (MSL) has emerged as a promising and challenging technique in micro-/nano-scale additive manufacturing. Besides the requirement of the light source, the motion system requires ultra-high-precision tracking capability to reach...

This paper presents experimental and numerical investigations of a novel passive micromixer based on the lamination of fluid layers. Lamination-based mixers benefit from increasing the contact surface between two fluid phases by enhancing molecular d...

Microfluidic assays are versatile tests which, using only small amounts of blood, enable high throughput analyses of platelet function in several minutes. In combination with fluorescence microscopy, these flow tests allow real-time visualisation of...

All-enzyme hydrogels are biocatalytic materials, with which various enzymes can be immobilized in microreactors in a simple, mild, and efficient manner to be used for continuous flow processes. Here we present the construction and application of a co...

Rapid and precise manipulation of magnetic beads on the nano and micro scales is essential in many biosensing applications, such as separating target molecules from background molecules and detecting specific proteins and DNA sequences in plasma. Acc...

Considering the lack of official vaccines and medicines for Ebola virus infection, reliable diagnostic methods are necessary for the control of the outbreak and the spread of the disease. We developed a microfluidic-chip-based portable system for fas...

Droplet microfluidic technology achieves precise manipulation of droplet behaviors by designing and controlling the flow and interaction of various incompatible fluids. The electric field provides a non-contact, pollution-free, designable and promisi...

To improve the electrical performance and bias-stress stability of amorphous InGaZnO thin-film transistors (a-IGZO TFTs), we fabricated and characterized buried-channel devices with multiple-stacked channel layers, i.e., a nitrogen-doped a-IGZO film...

Soft material-based pneumatic microtube actuators are attracting intense interest, since their bending motion is potentially useful for the safe manipulation of delicate biological objects. To increase their utility in biomedicine, researchers have b...

Organ-on-a-chip models with incorporated vasculature are becoming more popular to study platelet biology. A large variety of image analysis techniques are currently used to determine platelet coverage, ranging from manually setting thresholds to scor...

To overcome the inherent deficiencies of hearing aids, implantable middle ear hearing devices (IMEHDs) have emerged as a new treatment for hearing loss. However, clinical results show that the IMEHD performance varies with its transducer’s stim...

Various nanoscale fabrication techniques are elaborated to form artificial nanoporous/nanochannel membranes to be applied for biosensing: one of the most prevalent is the micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) compatible focused ion beam (FIB) millin...

In this work, the cascaded second-order spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is considered to produce pure state photon triplets in periodically poled lithium niobite (PPLN) doped with 5% MgO. A set of parameters are optimized through calcul...

A calibration method for the designed curved zoom compound eye is studied in order to achieve detection and positioning of spatial objects. The structure of the curved zoom compound eye is introduced. A calibration test platform is designed and built...

This paper reports the mechanical design, waveform investigation and experimental validation of an flexible-structure-based inertia-drive linear motor. The flexible structure is designed and verified with finite element analysis to meet the bandwidth...

Inertial separation techniques in a microfluidic system have been widely employed in the field of medical diagnosis for a long time. Despite no requirement of external forces, it requires strong hydrodynamic forces that could potentially cause cell d...

A temperature probe has been proposed by inserting a microfiber taper into a silica hollow core fiber with a microsphere end. The sealed air cavity in the microsphere and the inserted microfiber acted as the two reflectors of a Fabry-Perot interferom...

The electrothermal effect has been investigated extensively in microfluidics since the 1990s and has been suggested as a promising technique for fluid manipulations in lab-on-a-chip devices. The purpose of this article is to provide a timely overview...

The theoretical prediction models of contact angle were constructed by considering the interface free energy. Then, the square column structure on monocrystalline silicon was fabricated using micro-milling. The rationality of prediction models was va...

In this paper, we present a highly sensitive and selective detection of serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) based on silicon nanowire (SiNW) array device. With the help of traditional microfabrication technology, low-cost and highly controllable SiN...

Chitosan is a unique natural resourced polysaccharide derived from chitin with special biocompatibility, biodegradability, and antimicrobial activity. During the past three decades, chitosan has gradually become an excellent candidate for various bio...

Fast progress has been witnessed in the field of microfluidic systems and allowed outstanding approaches to portable, disposable, low-cost, and easy-to-operate platforms especially for monitoring health status and point-of-care applications. For this...

In this study, the photonic crystal structure is employed to increase both the light extraction efficiency and the modulation bandwidth of flip-chip GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The finite difference time domain method is utilized to inves...

A pressure resistant and optically accessible deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) device was designed and microfabricated from silicon and glass for high-throughput fractionation of particles between 3.0 and 7.0 µm comprising array segment...

This paper proposes a novel microdroplet generator based on the dielectrophoretic (DEP) force. Unlike the conventional continuous microfluidic droplet generator, this droplet generator is more like “invisible electric scissors”. It can cu...

Here, we report a simple and effective method for capturing and displacement of gram-negative bacteria using aptamer-modified microbeads and acoustophoresis. As acoustophoresis allows for simultaneous washing and size-dependent separation in continuo...

We propose a highly sensitive sensor based on a nematic liquid-crystal-filled side-hole fiber. The liquid crystal is precisely filled into an air hole of the optical fiber using a method of manually gluing in the fusion splicer. Due to the coupling b...

In this report, a novel tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) named ‘F-shaped TFET’ has been proposed and its electrical characteristics are analyzed and optimized by using a computer-aided design simulation. It features ultra-thin and a...

Development of green, clean, and sustainable processes presents new challenges in today’s science. Production of fuel is no exception. Considering the utilisation of various renewable sources, the synthesis of biodiesel, characterised as more e...

This study presents the effects of bottom electrode designs on the operation of laterally vibrating aluminum nitride (AlN) contour-mode resonators (CMRs). A total of 160 CMRs were analyzed with varying bottom electrode areas at two resonant frequenci...

Microfluidic biochip techniques are prominently replacing conventional biochemical analyzers by the integration of all functions necessary for biochemical analysis using microfluidics. The microfluidics of droplets offer exquisite control over the si...

Microencapsulation of islets can protect against immune reactions from the host immune system after transplantation. However, sufficient numbers of islets cannot be transplanted due to the increase of the size and total volume. Therefore, thin and st...

The recirculation of ink in an inkjet printhead system keeps the ink temperature and viscosity constant, and leads to the development of a high-performance device. Herein, we propose a recirculating piezo-driven micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS)...

Droplet microfluidics has become the most promising subcategory of microfluidics since it contributes numerous applications to diverse fields. However, fabrication of microfluidic devices for droplet formation, manipulation and applications is usuall...

L-shaped tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) provides higher on-current than a conventional TFET through band-to-band tunneling in the vertical direction of the channel. However, L-shaped TFET is disadvantageous for low-power applications because o...

The deformation behaviors and fracture features of GaP(100) single-crystal are investigated by using nano- and micro-scale indentation techniques. The hardness and Young’s modulus were measured by nanoindentation using a Berkovich diamond inden...

Extracellular vesicles provide cell-to-cell communication and have great potential for use as therapeutic carriers. This study was aimed at the development of an extracellular vesicle-based system for nucleic acid delivery. Three types of nanovesicle...

Rapid and efficient demulsification (destabilizing of an emulsion) processes of a water in oil (W/O) emulsion were carried out in a three-dimensional electric spiral plate-type microchannel (3D-ESPM). In this experiment, the demulsifying efficiency o...

Electroosmotic flow (EOF) of viscoelastic fluid with Linear Phan-Thien–Tanner (LPTT) constitutive model in a nanochannel connecting two reservoirs is numerically studied. For the first time, the influence of viscoelasticity on the EOF and the i...

A tribotester with an integrated load sensor based on a strain gauge is typically used to measure the friction coefficient generated by the contact-related sliding motion of two objects. Since the friction coefficient is obtained by dividing the meas...

In this paper, a germanium-based gate-metal-core vertical nanowire tunnel field effect transistor (VNWTFET) has been designed and optimized using the technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulation. In the proposed structure, by locating the gate-...

Electronic devices used for marine applications suffer from several issues that can compromise their performance. In particular, water absorption and permeation can lead to the corrosion of metal parts or short-circuits. The added mass due to the abs...

As key bioelectrical markers, equivalent capacitance (C_ne, i.e., capacitance per unit area) and resistance (R_ne, i.e., resistivity multiply thickness) of nuclear envelopes have emerged as promising electrical indicators, which cannot be effectively m...