Test structure for characterising low voltage coplanar EWOD system

Author

Li, Yifan ; Yoshio, Mita ; Haworth, Les ; Parkes, William ; Kubota, Masanori ; Walton, Anthony

Author_Institution

Sch. of Eng. & Electron., Univ. of Edinburgh, Edinburgh

fYear

2008

fDate

24-27 March 2008

Firstpage

80

Lastpage

85

Abstract

This paper presents test structures designed for studying the relationship between the operation voltage and the configuration of electrode area for coplanar EWOD (Electro Wet- ting On Dielectrics) devices. Robust anodic Ta₂O₅ dielectric and thin aFP (amorphous Fluoropolymer) have been used to fabricate the structures. Test structures have been used to characterise the significant contact angle change on asymmetric configurations, 114deg to 81deg on CYTOP (amorphous fluoropolymer from Asahi Glass Co. Ltd.) with an applied voltage of less than 20 V. This demonstrates that by modifying the design, the operating voltage can be reduced by a factor of two, compared to the existing symmetric coplanar EWOD structures. Droplet manipulation on a coplanar EWOD system with this new design has been successfully demonstrated, with a driving voltage of 15 V.

Keywords

dielectric materials; test equipment; amorphous fluoropolymer; anodic dielectric; coplanar dielectric device; droplet manipulation; electrode area; symmetric coplanar structure; test structure; Acoustic testing; Contacts; Dielectric devices; Dielectric measurements; Electrodes; Electronic equipment testing; Low voltage; Microfluidics; Surface acoustic waves; System testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microelectronic Test Structures, 2008. ICMTS 2008. IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Edinburgh

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-1800-8

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-1801-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICMTS.2008.4509318

Filename

4509318