Micro Valve and Chaotic Mixer Driven by Electrorheological Fluid

Abstract

We present the successful design and fabrication of push-and-pull micro-valve and micro mixer chips that driven by a kind of nanoparticle based giant electrorheological fluid (GER fluid). Our multilayer chips are fabricated by polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based soft lithography techniques. Fast response time of the GER fluid and the push-and-pull valve design adopted assure fast switching time of the valve less than 10 ms and sound reliability. The giant electrorheological effect of ER fluid used is able to provide high pressure changes in GER control channels, so as to supply perturbations with amplitude big enough to achieve fully chaotic mixing of micro flows in a short channel length