Continuous transfer of liquid metal droplets across a fluid–fluid interface within an integrated microfluidic chip

摘要: Micro scale liquid metal droplets have been hailed as the potential key building blocks of future micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). However, most current enabled involve millimeter droplets, which are manually injected onto desired locations microchip. Despite its simplicity, this method is impractical for patterning large arrays or complex based on micro droplets. Here, we present a microfluidic chip, integrates continuous generation galinstan in glycerol, and hydrodynamic transfer these into sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution. Observation via high-speed imaging along with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis utilised to comprehend lateral migration from glycerol NaOH fluid. This platform simple, can be readily integrated other systems, creates flexibility by separating phase droplet eventual target carrier within monolithic chip.