• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 제어로봇시스템학회 2003년도 ICCAS
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• pp.2349-2351
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• 2003

This paper reports a novel microfluidic system, by which microfluidic delivery, transport and control can be digitally realized in femtoliter scale. Microelectronic grade $N_2$ from a pressurized canister was passed through HPLC tubing into a micro injector. The micro injector was driven and controlled digitally by the control system that can apply various control parameters such as pulse frequencies. A front-end of micro nozzle was inserted the dyed oil to collect droplets injected. The diameter of a droplet was measured by a microscope and a CCD camera, and then its volume can be calculated on the assumption that the droplet is spherical. The micro nozzles were simply pulled in glass capillary tubes by the micro puller self-made, and the geometry parameters of the micro nozzles can be adjusted easily. Experiments have successfully been carried out, and the results demonstrated that the proposed digital micro injector possesses three significant advantages : precise ultra-small liquid volume in femtoliter scale, digital microfluidic control and micro devices fabricated by simple glass process, not based on IC process.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제31권3호
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• pp.209-216
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• 2007

Bacterial chemotaxis is essential to the study of structure and function of bacteria. Although many studies have accumulated the knowledge about chemotaxis in the past, the motion of a single bacterium has not been studied much yet. In this study, we have developed a device microfabricated by soft lithography and consisting of microfluidic channels. The microfluidic assay generates a concentration gradient of chemoattractant linearly in the main channel by only diffusion of the chemicals. Bacteria are injected into the main channel in a single row by hydrodynamic focusing technique. We measured the velocity of bacteria in response to a given concentration gradient of chemoattractant using the microfludic assay, optical systems with CCD camera and simple PTV (Particle Tracking Velocimetry) algorithm. The advantage of this assay and experiment is to measure the velocity of a single bacterium and to quantify the degree of chemotaxis by statistically analyzing the velocity at the same time. Specifically, we measured and analyzed the motility of Escherichia coli strain RP437 in response to various concentration gradients of L-aspartate statistically and quantitatively by using this microfluidic assay. We obtained the probability density of the velocity while RP437 cells are swimming and tumbling in the presence of the linear concentration gradient of L-aspartate, and quantified the degree of chemotaxis by analyzing the probability density.