Abstract

The microfabrication technologies of the semiconductor industry have made it possible to integrate increasingly complex electronic and mechanical functions, providing us with ever smaller, cheaper and smarter sensors and devices. These technologies have also spawned microfluidics systems for containing and controlling fluid at the micrometre scale, where the increasing importance of viscosity and surface tension profoundly affects fluid behaviour. It is this confluence of available microscale engineering and scale-dependence of fluid behaviour that has revolutionized our ability to precisely control fluid/fluid interfaces for use in fields ranging from materials processing and analytical chemistry to biology and medicine.

1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1550 Engineering Drive, Rm 2142 ECB, Madison, Wisconsin WI 53706, USA.

Correspondence to: David J. Beebe¹ Email: djbeebe@wisc.edu

MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS

These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.