Study on Controls of Fluids in Nanochannel via Hybrid Surface

Abstract

This thesis contributes to the investigation of controls of nanofluidic fluids by utilizing hybrid surface patterns in nanochannel.

Nanofluidics is a core and interdisciplinary research field which manipulates, controls and analyzes fluids in nanoscale and develop potential bio/chemical applications. This thesis studies the surface-induced phenomena in nanofluidics, we use surface decoration on nanochannel walls to investigate the influences on fluid motion and further explore the fundamental physical principle of this behavior.

To begin with, we designed and fabricated the nanofluidic mixer for the first time, which comprised hybrid surface patterns with different wettabilities on both top and bottom walls of nanochannel. Although microfluidic mixers have been intensively investigated, nanofluidic mixer has never been reported. Without any inside geometric structure of nanochannel, the mixing phenomenon can be achieved by the surface patterns and the mixing length can be significantly shortened comparing with micromixer. We attribute this achievement to the chaotic flows of two fluids induced by the patterned surface. The surface-related phenomena may not be so prominent on large scale, however, it is pronounced when the scale shrinks down to nanometer due to the large surface-to-volume ratio in nanochannel.

 

In the second part of this work, based on the technology of nanofabrication and similar principle, we built up another novel method to control the speed of capillary flow in nanochannel in a quantitative manner. Surface patterns were fabricated on the nanochannel walls to slow down the capillary flow. The flow speed can be precisely controlled by modifying hydrophobicity ratio. Under the extreme surface-to-volume ratio in nanochannel, the significant surface effect on the fluid effectively reduced the speed of capillary flow without any external energy source and equipment. Such approach may be adopted for a wide variety of nanofluidicsbased biochemical analysis systems.