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Single-Sided Digital Microfluidic (SDMF) Devices for Effective Coolant Delivery and Enhanced Two-Phase Cooling

ABSTRACT: Digital microfluidics (DMF) driven by electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) has recently been attracting great attention as an effective liquid-handling platform for on-chip cooling. It enables rapid transportation of coolant liquid sandwiched between two parallel plates and drop-wise thermal rejection from a target heating source without additional mechanical components such as pumps, microchannels, and capillary wicks. However, a typical sandwiched configuration in DMF devices only allows sensible heat transfer, which seriously limits heat rejection capability, particularly for high-heat-flux thermal dissipation. In this paper, we present a single-sided digital microfluidic (SDMF) device that enables not only effective liquid handling on a single-sided surface, but also two-phase heat transfer to enhance thermal rejection performance. Several droplet manipulation functions required for two-phase cooling were demonstrated, including continuous droplet injection, rapid transportation as fast as 7.5 cm/s, and immobilization on the target hot spot where heat flux is locally concentrated. Using the SDMF platform, we experimentally demonstrated high-heat-flux cooling on the hydrophilic-coated hot spot. Coolant droplets were continuously transported to the target hot spot which was mitigated below 40 K of the superheat. The effective heat transfer coefficient was stably maintained even at a high heat flux regime over ~130 W/cm2, which will allow us to develop a reliable thermal management module. Our SDMF technology offers an effective on-chip cooling approach, particularly for high-heat-flux thermal management based on two-phase heat transfer.

SUBMITTER: Park S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6190137 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Nucleic acid amplification tests that are coupled with a digital readout enable the absolute quantification of single molecules, even at ultralow concentrations. Digital methods are robust, versatile and compatible with many amplification chemistries including isothermal amplification, making them particularly invaluable to assays that require sensitive detection, such as the quantification of viral load in occult infections or detection of sparse amounts of DNA from forensic samples. A number of microfluidic platforms are being developed for carrying out digital amplification. However, the mechanistic investigation and optimization of digital assays has been limited by the lack of real-time kinetic information about which factors affect the digital efficiency and analytical sensitivity of a reaction. Commercially available instruments that are capable of tracking digital reactions in real-time are restricted to only a small number of device types and sample-preparation strategies. Thus, most researchers who wish to develop, study, or optimize digital assays rely on the rate of the amplification reaction when performed in a bulk experiment, which is now recognized as an unreliable predictor of digital efficiency. To expand our ability to study how digital reactions proceed in real-time and enable us to optimize both the digital efficiency and analytical sensitivity of digital assays, we built a custom large-format digital real-time amplification instrument that can accommodate a wide variety of devices, amplification chemistries and sample-handling conditions. Herein, we validate this instrument, we provide detailed schematics that will enable others to build their own custom instruments, and we include a complete custom software suite to collect and analyze the data retrieved from the instrument. We believe assay optimizations enabled by this instrument will improve the current limits of nucleic acid detection and quantification, improving our fundamental understanding of single-molecule reactions and providing advancements in practical applications such as medical diagnostics, forensics and environmental sampling.

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Single-Sided Digital Microfluidic (SDMF) Devices for Effective Coolant Delivery and Enhanced Two-Phase Cooling

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