Dynamic Study of Planar Focusing for a Microfluidic Cell Sorter

Abstract

Planar focusing is widely used in lab-on-a-chip applications and devices. In the previous works, only the steady state was considered for the planar focusing. In this study, a dynamic response of planar focusing is studied using numerical simulation. From our simulation, the response time is various with different inlet velocity and focusing ratio. The results show that at small velocity, the response time is quit short and the velocity magnitude has small influence on response time. Interesting, we also found that the ratio of focusing ratio affect the response time stronger than velocity magnitude. It is useful to design and optimize planar focusing microfluidic cell sorters or other microfluidic devices.