Controllable Flowing of a Dielectric Fluid Droplet under the Action of Corona Discharge.

Polymer microfluidic technology is widely used in chemistry, biology, medicine, nanoparticles synthesis, and other fields. In this article, we introduce a novel method for the controllable flowing of dielectric fluid droplets. Under the action of corona discharge, the dielectric fluid droplet can be controllably driven to one or more conductive plate electrodes that are connected to the negative electrode on the substrate. Phenomena of polymerization, migration, and separation and merger are experimentally verified in detail, and the spreading speeds and steady-state time are discussed. The experimental results show that the proposed method is accurate and controllable.