A novel crescent electrode for droplet splitting in digital microfluidic

Comparing to other operations, the splitting of droplet always need a higher voltage. The ways of reducing voltage has investigated. In this paper, a study is presented to investigate the best electrode shape of splitting droplet. A comparison about the droplet´s fissility of different electrode shapes has been investigated in the experiments. A new electrode shape is proposed which provides a pair of larger force in opposite directions at the contact line as well as overlap between the adjacent electrodes. Based on the three-phase contact line(TCL)theory, the onset of actuation and droplet mobility on electrode arrays have been investigated. The superior performance of the opposite layout crescent electrode during splitting droplet is showed. Validation experiments were carried out to characterize the droplet actuation by various electrode shapes. About twenty percent of driving voltage can be saved compared to the other electrode. A similar result is showed by investigating the performance of the opposite layout crescent electrode at different kinds of channel heights.