Picoliter Controllable Syringes Driven by Parallel Motions of Electrostatic Controlled Linear Inchworm Actuator

Merging parallel micro actuators and Micro Total Analysis Systems (μTAS) has made it possible to control a picoliter-scale liquid in this work. Sliders of Electrostatic Controlled Linear Inchworm Actuator (ECLIA) are applied to control motions of micro syringes. ECLIA can drive its sliders in parallel with high accuracy and large stroke. Requirements for syringe performance such as precise and parallel liquid control can be satisfied by above features of ECLIA. Several tens of pL can be controlled by several tens of nm stepwise motion of ECLIA in our experiments. Micro syringes integrated with the ECLIA driving mechanism will promise further progress of lab-on-a-chip for μTAS. In addition, the approach has a significant implication that the electrostatic actuator performs a physical task to the outside actuator chip.