Passive, programmable flow control in capillary force driven microfluidic networks

This paper presents first results towards the programmable control of liquid flow in microfluidic devices driven by capillary forces only, i.e. no external or active pumps, pressure regulators or valves are required, the control function being "hard-wired" by the geometry of the microfluidic network. It is shown that such passive flow control can effectively modulate flow conditions in a capillary driven microfluidic device. Liquid was stopped up to five seconds and re-accelerated with this concept.