BIC: Conference Contributions

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    Microfluidic Platform to Study Electric Field Based Root Targeting by Pathogenic Zoospores
    (IEEE, 2022) Sarkar D; Sun Y; Tayagui A; Adams R; Garrill A; Nock, Volker
    This paper reports the fabrication and application of a microfluidic Lab-on-a-Chip platform to study the electrotactic movements of pathogenic microorganisms. The movement of the pathogens in response to electric fields are one way in which they are thought to locate their hosts. Design and fabrication of the platform, and associated micro-electronics are described. The platform contains arrays of micro-electrodes that generate an electric field of defined strength in a micro-chamber into which feed inlet and outlet channels for entry and exit of media and microorganisms. To demonstrate applicability of the platform, motile zoospores of the pathogenic oomycete Phytophthora nicotianae were seeded in the inlet and a voltage was applied to investigate the electrotactic responses of the zoospores. This platform offers a unique opportunity to study electrotactic movements that may be responsible for the ability of the pathogens to locate and invade host tissue.
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    Field Effect Transistor-Like Control of Capillaric Flow Using Off-Valves
    (IEEE, 2022) Meffan RC; Mak D; Menges J; Dolamore F; Fee C; Dobson RCJ; Nock, Volker
    An important application area of microfluidics is point-of-care devices. Capillaric circuits are a promising technology to realize such devices. Recently, we introduced a capillary action off-valve which adds preprogrammed autonomous “off”-type valving as a unit operation to capillaric circuits. To date, these devices have only been shown to operate in binary mode. However, due to its conceptual symmetry with electronic junction field effect transistors, it was hypothesized that the off-valve was capable of providing analog resistance control. Using an experimental approach, this work demonstrates for the first time that capillary off-valves can operate in analog resistance mode and that flow control results can be fitted using a modified model of the Shockley transistor equation.