Advanced combinational microfluidic multiplexer using multiple levels of control pressures

Abstract

We propose an advanced combinational microfluidic multiplexing method capable of increasing the number of addressable fluidic channels dramatically. Using only 4 control lines, the proposed advanced combinational multiplexer, utilizing two different levels of control pressure, could address up to 19 fluidic channels, which is at least two times larger than previous multiplexers. The difference between the maximum addressable channels in the present and previous methods increases dramatically when the control lines and control pressure levels increase. The present multiplexer, with its high control efficiency and simple structure for channel addressing, could be used in the application areas of integrated microfluidic systems such as high-throughput analyzers and dynamic pressure generators.