Investigation Of Eiectrowetting-Based Liquid Transistor

With the advent of technology, device’s miniaturization has become the trend of the future. Microfluidics is one of the most important technology to solve the difficulty of device’s miniaturization. The technique of electrowetting on dielectric is considered to be one of the most promising microfluidic technology. Because conventional semiconductorFETs still have its limitations, this paper has designed, fabricated and tested a new electrowetting-based liquid transistor.This paper includes the several following part mainly:Firstly, this paper introduces the study background of electrowetting on dielectric and semiconductorFETs, and indicates the necessity and meaning of researching the new electrowetting-based liquid transistor.Secondly, this paper introduces the structure and working principle of the liquid transistor, and fabricates a new liquid transistor successfully. The liquid transistor consisted of KC1solution, dodecane, dielectric layers, hydrophobic layers, source electrode, drain electrode, gate electrode and hydrophilic/hydrophobic grids to contain the liquids.Thirdly, this paper introduces the characterization of the new electrowetting-based liquid transistor by experiments and simulations. The part of experiments:this paper researches the electrowetting phenomenon of KC1solution in the air and under dodecane, tests the the liquid transistor and observes the electrowetting phenomenon. The part of simulations:this paper creates competitive electrowetting between two immiscible liquids (KC1solution and dodecane) models by using COMSOL4.2a software. By simulation, we can see the variation of surface tension and flow velocity in liquids. So, we can better explain the electrowetting phenomenon in experiments.At last, the paper summaries the research contents and the achievements, summarize the deficiency and discusses the problems which should be further researched.