Electric manipulation of microscaled fluid flows

Abstract

Manipulation of fluids has attracted interests due to the beauty of its fundamental dynamics, as well as its importance in different applications, such as materials processing and printing. Control over fluids is enhanced when the lengthscale of the fluid is miniaturized; hence, microfluidics has established itself as a promising platform for engineering fluid flows. In this talk, I will discuss how electrical charging can be incorporated into microfluidic flows to manipulate not just the size and shape, but also the dynamics of multiphase structures, such as droplets and jets. The electrical charging can impose a stress to the liquid-liquid interfaces, offering an additional control parameters to the final structures of the liquids. I will present our understanding of these electromicrofluidic systems, and demonstrate how they can be used to characterize liquid-liquid interfaces, and to extend the range of structures that can be printed using an extrusion-based approach.