Achievement

The UCLA Micro and Nano Manufacturing Lab (Prof. CJ Kim) has been pioneering digital microfluidic devices based on electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD). The ability to manipulate liquids as individual droplets by electrical signals provides generalized lab-on-a-chip platforms for applications from biomedical (e.g., cell studies; PET scan) to industrial (e.g., micro rheometer). Bridging engineering with biology, Wyatt Nelson has developed a new fabrication method for monolithically constructed EWOD chips operating in the usual parallel-plate configuration. Using this architecture, he eliminated the limitations and errors associated with typical assembled EWOD chips. The monolithic chip can be scaled down to handle droplets of only a few microns (cell size), with nanometer accuracy, resulting in the ability to perform pico- and femtoliter reactions. He has demonstrated all core digital microfluidic functions (i.e., creation, transport, division) of ~100 pL water droplets in vapor or oil.