Noncontact Determination of Velocity and Volume of Nanoliter Droplets on the Fly

We present a sensor for measuring volume and velocity of dispensed nanoliter droplets in a noncontact manner on the fly. The sensor-setup has a total thickness of 3.2 mm and can easily be mounted underneath any given nanoliter dispenser for continuous online monitoring of its dispensing performance. The principle is based on the interaction of dispensed single droplets of sample liquid passing the electric field of an open plate capacitor. The effect depends on droplet parameters like volume, velocity, and dielectric constant and is discussed in the paper. The presented data analysis enables a velocity independent volume determination of water droplets in the range from 26 to 82 nl with an accuracy of 3 nl. The sensor signal is sensitive to the alignment of the flight path of the nanoliter droplets within the 1.2-mm wide open capacitor and can lead to systematic volume errors of up to ΔV ~ 12 nl. The impact of different dielectric constants can only be differentiated for very high variations; thus, the sensor needs to be calibrated to the different types of liquids.