Quantitative volume determination of dispensed nanoliter droplets on the fly

Author

Ernst, A. ; Streule, W. ; Zengerle, R. ; Koltay, P.

Author_Institution

Dept. for Microsyst. Eng., Univ. of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

fYear

2009

fDate

21-25 June 2009

Firstpage

1750

Lastpage

1753

Abstract

In this paper we present a sensor for non-contact monitoring of dispensed micro-droplets on the fly. In extension to our previous work, the sensor now allows for a direct, quantitative volume determination of single liquid droplets in the volume range from 20 to 100 nl. The improved electronic transducer enables to measure the droplet volume with an accuracy of DeltaV plusmn 3 nl. The sensor signal provides a variety of information about the monitored droplet like for examples droplet velocity. This paper considers in particular the influence of the droplet velocity on the volume measurement. It turned out that the velocity effect can be fully compensated, if the signals are interpreted correctly.

Keywords

capacitive sensors; drops; volume measurement; dispensed micro-droplets; dispensed nanoliter droplets; droplet volume; electronic transducer; noncontact monitoring; quantitative volume determination; single liquid droplets; volume measurement; Capacitive sensors; Capacitors; Dielectric constant; Dielectric measurements; Electrodes; Equations; Monitoring; Permittivity measurement; Pollution measurement; Volume measurement; Capacitive sensor; nanoliter dispensing; non-contact detection; process control;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Conference, 2009. TRANSDUCERS 2009. International

Conference_Location

Denver, CO

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-4190-7

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-4193-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SENSOR.2009.5285741

Filename

5285741