Droplet Transportation in MEDA-Based Biochips: An Enhanced Technique for Intelligent Cross-Contamination Avoidance

Recent advances in microfluidics and microfabrication technology enabled the emergence of a new microelectrode-dot-array (MEDA) architecture for microfluidic biochips. The MEDA-based design allows dynamic routing with variable-sized droplets. The cross contamination avoidance between droplets of different biomolecules subjected for analysis and detection on MEDA architecture poses a major design challenge for development of MEDA-based biochips. In this article, we propose a precise technique for droplet routing with minimal cross contamination for MEDA-based biochips. Here we first evaluate the probability of cross contamination between any two droplets within the 2-D MEDA layout. Thereby, we propose a routing scheme for functional droplets specifically targeted for intelligent cross-contamination avoidance. As evident from the experimental results, the proposed technique effectively reduces both intra and inter subproblem cross contaminations. Experiment results shows considerable improvements over contemporary works.