Fluidic logic: Using bubbles as dynamic valves

Abstract

Fluidic devices are capable of performing logic operations. In enclosed low Reynold's microfluidic devices, air cannot escape the channels, effectively turning the air into a controlling element to perform logic operations. When using defined microfluidic architectures, air bubbles can be used as valves at intersecting channels of different lengths. In PDMS devices, increasing the pressure will cause the bubble to disappear, effectively making the bubble valve dynamic and programmable. In this work we will present two computational problems, the maze, a simple computational problem, and a variation on the travelling salesman problem, a computational hard problem. Copyright © (2011) by the Chemical and Biological Microsystems Society.