Integration of organic opto-electrowetting and poly(ethylene) glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) microfluidics for droplets manipulation

This paper reports a fabrication technology which integrates organic opto-electrowetting (OEW) with PEGDA-based microfluidics between stacked ITO glass chips for droplets generation and manipulation. Organic OEW can be realized by using titanium oxide phthalocyanine (TiOPc) as a photoconductive layer. Optical images can be projected on an organic OEW area to induce the local virtual electrodes which reduce the surface energy for actuating droplets. Low-molecular-weight (LMW) PEGDA (poly(ethylene) glycol diacrylate) material is used to form stable and biocompatible microchannels between the stacked ITO glass chips by UV photopolymerization process. PEGDA-based microfluidics provides a simpler way to enhance droplets applications in organic OEW. We demonstrate (1) the droplet formation in PEGDA microstructure, (2) the motion of droplet-in-air and droplet-in-oil operated by TiOPc OEW in this platform. This technology requires only spin-coating and UV exposure and is more cost-effective than previous methods.