Charge-driven dispensing of picolitre drops for biomolecules microarrays by Pyro-Electro-hydrodynamic system

In the field of biological and chemical assays, much research activity has been directed towards the development of miniaturized instrumentations to fabricate highly integrated and automated 'lab-on-a-chip' systems based on microfluidics [1]. Such systems offer many advantages such as reduced reagent consumption, faster analysis and increased instrument portability. At present, most microfluidic technologies consist of micro-channels where liquids are manipulated by changing pressures or electrode voltages but such systems suffer from different drawbacks such as complex fabrication, sample cross-contamination, high voltage or pressure requirements [2,3]. Our work represents instead a new and simple system where the liquid actuation and dispensing has been achieved through electrode-free configurations using polar dielectric crystals such as lithium niobate (LN) and by exploiting the pyroelectric effect [4-6]. This novel 'Pyro-Electro-hydrodynamic' manipulation system could be used as a pioneering portable instrument for detecting in-situ even low concentrated analytes not detectable by traditional methods.