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

At present, most microfluidic technologies consist of microchannels 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. 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. 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.