Introducing communication and networking technologies into lab-on-chip systems

Microfluidics is a science and a technology which deals with manipulation and control of small volumes of fluids flowing in channels of micro-scale size. It is currently used for Labs-On-a-Chip (LoCs) applications mainly. In this context, recently fluids have been used in the discrete form of droplets or bubbles dispersed into another immiscible fluid. In this case, droplets or bubbles can be exploited as a means to transport digital information between microfluidic components, with sequences of particles (i.e. droplets or bubbles) representing sequences of binary values. LoCs are today realized through monolithic devices in which samples are processed by passing them through a predetermined sequence of elements connected by fixed and preconfigured microfluidic channels. To increase reusability of LoCs, effectiveness and flexibility, networking functionalities can be introduced so that the sequence of elements involved in the processing can be dynamically selected. Accordingly, in this thesis we introduce the Networked LoC (NLoC) paradigm that brings networking concepts and solutions in microfluidic systems such as LoCs. More specifically, in this paper the need for the introduction of the NLoC paradigm is motivated, its required functions are identified, a system architecture is proposed, and the related physical level design aspects, such as channel characterization, information representation and information capacity are investigated; finally a switching device is proposed and studied.