Zaman Mohammad Asif, Wu Mo, Padhy Punnag, Jensen Michael A, Hesselink Lambertus, Davis Ronald W
Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Stanford Genome Technology Center, Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA.
Micromachines (Basel). 2021 Oct 18;12(10):1265. doi: 10.3390/mi12101265.
Lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices capable of manipulating micro/nano-sized samples have spurred advances in biotechnology and chemistry. Designing and analyzing new and more advanced LOCs require accurate modeling and simulation of sample/particle dynamics inside such devices. In this work, we present a generalized computational physics model to simulate particle/sample trajectories under the influence of dielectrophoretic or optical forces inside LOC devices. The model takes into account time varying applied forces, Brownian motion, fluid flow, collision mechanics, and hindered diffusion caused by hydrodynamic interactions. We develop a numerical solver incorporating the aforementioned physics and use it to simulate two example cases: first, an optical trapping experiment, and second, a dielectrophoretic cell sorter device. In both cases, the numerical results are found to be consistent with experimental observations, thus proving the generality of the model. The numerical solver can simulate time evolution of the positions and velocities of an arbitrarily large number of particles simultaneously. This allows us to characterize and optimize a wide range of LOCs. The developed numerical solver is made freely available through a GitHub repository so that researchers can use it to develop and simulate new designs.
能够操纵微纳尺寸样本的芯片实验室(LOC)设备推动了生物技术和化学领域的发展。设计和分析新型及更先进的LOC需要对此类设备内部的样本/粒子动力学进行精确建模和模拟。在这项工作中,我们提出了一个广义计算物理模型,用于模拟LOC设备内部介电泳力或光力影响下的粒子/样本轨迹。该模型考虑了随时间变化的作用力、布朗运动、流体流动、碰撞力学以及由流体动力相互作用引起的受阻扩散。我们开发了一个包含上述物理过程的数值求解器,并用它模拟了两个示例情况:一是光镊实验,二是介电泳细胞分选设备。在这两种情况下,数值结果均与实验观测结果一致,从而证明了该模型的通用性。该数值求解器能够同时模拟任意数量粒子位置和速度的时间演化。这使我们能够对各种LOC进行表征和优化。通过GitHub仓库免费提供了所开发的数值求解器,以便研究人员能够使用它来开发和模拟新设计。