Microfluidic research has been motivated by the increasing need to manipulate small amounts of fluids, often for the purpose of fast analysis of biological and chemical samples. An important issue in microfluidics is the control of fluid interfaces, in particular the generation and manipulation of droplets in lab-on-a-chip devices. Applications range from analytical chemistry to controlled release to micro-engineered materials with specialized biological, chemical and optical properties.

Recently, microscopic flow-focusing devices have been developed to mass-produce highly monodisperse drops. In this project, we use our in-house numerical toolkit AMPHI to simulate the formation of simple and compound drops in a microfluidic channel. Click the following image to see a video showing the formation of compound drops with three co-flowing streams of Newtonian fluid. We have also simulated drop formation using viscoelastic fluids. Click here for more information.

(A video showing the formation of compound drops with three co-flowing streams of Newtonian fluid)

In collaboration with Professor Amy Shen of the University of Washington, we are investigating experimentally and computationally the formation and manipulation of droplets of liquid crystals in microfluidic channels.