Field Programmable Droplets Array: An Active-matrix digital microfluidics platform for field programmable high-throughput digitalized liquid handling

Subjects: Engineering and technical science >> Biomedical Engineering submitted time 2023-05-27

Wang, Dongping Jin, Kai Hu, Chenxuan Du, Maohua Belgaid, Yacine Shi, Subao Li, Jiahao Hu, Siyi Yu, Jun Nathan, Arokia Ma, Hanbin

Abstract： Digital liquid sample handling is an enabling tool for cutting-edge lifesciences research. Similar to Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) in Integrated Circuits, we present here an active-matrix thin-film electronicsbased digital microfluidics system, which will be henceforth referred to as Field Programmable Droplets Arrays (FPDA). The system contains 256 × 256 pixels in an active area of 10.65 cm2, which is capable of manipulating thousands of individually addressable liquid droplets simultaneously. By leveraging a customised TFT-based circuit design solution, it becomes possible to programmatically manipulate droplets at the pixel level. The minimum achievable droplet volume is around 0.5 nl, which is two orders of magnitude smaller than the state-of-the-art reported1. The movement of droplets can be either pre-programmed or controlled in real-time. The FPDA system shows great potential of the ubiquitous thin-film electronics technology in digital liquid handling. These efforts will make it possible to create a true programmable lab-on-a-chip device to enable great advances in life science research.

Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review

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