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Despite numerous studies, the mechanism of destabilization of oil-in-water emulsions during cooling-heating cycles is unclear due to indirect measurements and lack of direct control ...over the droplet size. It is hypothesized that emulsions with a smaller droplet size are more resistant to destabilization than emulsions containing larger droplets since the probability of initiating partial coalescence and forming large-scale aggregates is lower for small droplets.
Monodisperse hexadecane-in-water emulsions with controlled droplet sizes were produced using a microfluidic valve-based flow-focusing device and varying the system parameters. A unique approach was developed to create a two-dimensional (2D) array of droplets enabling visualization of the destabilization process due to temperature cycling. The influence of droplet size on partial coalescence and destabilization was investigated.
In the 2D emulsion, destabilization proceeds through a combination of spontaneous coalescence events that yield small-scale structures followed by formation of large-scale structures by coalescence propagation. We find that emulsion destabilization increases with droplet size. Quantifying the frequency of n-body coalescence events reveals that in emulsions with small droplets coalescence propagation is hindered. Phenomena involving restructuring, growth and cross-linking of droplet aggregates are identified as the key features of the emulsion destabilization mechanism.
Current lithography methods allow facile fabrication of microfluidic conduits where not only the shape of the bounding walls can be arbitrarily varied but also the internal conduit space can be laden ...with a variety of microstructures and wetting properties. This virtually infinite design space of microfluidic geometries brings in the challenge of how to quantify fluid resistance in a large number of microfluidic conduits, while maintaining operational simplicity. We report a versatile experimental technique referred to as microfluidic bypass manometry for measurement of pressure drop versus flow rate (ΔP-Q) relations in a parallelized manner. The technique involves introducing co-flowing laminar streams into a microfluidic network that contains a series of loops, where each loop is comprised of a test geometry and a bypass channel as a flow-rate sensing element. We optimize the network geometry and present operational considerations for microfluidic bypass manometry. To demonstrate the power of our technique, we used single-phase fluids and measured ΔP-Q relations simultaneously for forty test geometries ranging from linear to contraction-expansion to serpentine to pillar-laden microchannels. To expand the capabilities of the method, we measured ΔP-Q relations for similar-sized oil droplets trapped in microcavities where the cavity geometry spans from prisms of 3-10 sides to circular disks. We found in all cases, the ΔP-Q relation is nonlinear and the flow resistance of droplets is sensitive to confinement. At high flow rates, the drop resistance depends on the cavity geometry and is higher in a triangular prism compared to a circular disk. We compared the measured flow resistance of single-phase fluids and droplets in different microfluidic geometries to that from computational fluid dynamics simulations and found them to be in excellent agreement. Given the simplicity and versatility of the microfluidic bypass manometry method, we anticipate that it may find broad application in several areas including design of lab-on-chip devices, laminar drag reduction and mechanics of deformable particles.
We report a disposable microfluidic extensional viscometer based on an optimized hyperbolic contraction–expansion geometry. This “eCapillary” device works by measuring pressure drop as a function of ...flow rate while accounting for viscous contribution to the pressure drop. The viscometer operates by applying a constant pressure and using an image-based approach to measure the flow rate. The device is fabricated entirely out of polydimethylsiloxane with no embedded sensors, making it disposable. We tested our approach using weakly elastic polymer solutions whose relaxation times were characterized by dripping-on-substrate rheology. Flow visualization was used to determine the onset of inertioelastic instabilities in the eCapillary device, thereby establishing the operating limits for extensional rheological measurements. Holography-based velocimetry analysis showed that extensional strain rate is uniform in a narrow section of the contraction throat necessitating correction for the shear contribution to the measured pressure drop. We observed the onset of extensional thickening to occur at Deborah number ≈ 1 and found that the apparent extensional viscosities are 2–4 orders of magnitude higher than the shear viscosities. Finally, we compared our data with those from other microfluidic extensional viscometers reported in the literature and found good agreement.
We report a method for growing rectangular InAs nanofins with deterministic length, width, and height by dielectric-templated selective-area epitaxy. These freestanding nanofins can be transferred to ...lay flat on a separate substrate for device fabrication. A key goal was to regain a spatial dimension for device design compared to nanowires, while retaining the benefits of bottom-up epitaxial growth. The transferred nanofins were made into devices featuring multiple contacts for Hall effect and four-terminal resistance studies, as well as a global back-gate and nanoscale local top-gates for density control. Hall studies give a 3D electron density 2.5–5 × 1017 cm–3, corresponding to an approximate surface accumulation layer density 3–6 × 1012 cm–2 that agrees well with previous studies of InAs nanowires. We obtain Hall mobilities as high as 1200 cm2/(V s), field-effect mobilities as high as 4400 cm2/(V s), and clear quantum interference structure at temperatures as high as 20 K. Our devices show excellent prospects for fabrication into more complicated devices featuring multiple ohmic contacts, local gates, and possibly other functional elements, for example, patterned superconductor contacts, that may make them attractive options for future quantum information applications.
In this paper, structural, optical and electrical characterizations of longwave infrared barrier detectors based on the InAs/GaSb superlattice are reported and analyzed. The fabricated detectors ...exhibited a 50% cut-off wavelength around 10.5 μm at 80K measured by photoluminescence and spectral response. The dark current density was 8.4×10-4 A/cm2 at 80K and a performance analysis combining spectral response, dark current-voltage characteristic and capacitance-voltage measurement curves was performed to determine the operating bias and the dark current regimes at different biases. Dark current simulations were also performed to better understand limiting dark current mechanisms of the device performance.
Difficulties in obtaining high-performance p-type transistors and gate insulator charge-trapping effects present two major challenges for III–V complementary metal–oxide semiconductor (CMOS) ...electronics. We report a p-GaAs nanowire metal–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MESFET) that eliminates the need for a gate insulator by exploiting the Schottky barrier at the metal–GaAs interface. Our device beats the best-performing p-GaSb nanowire metal–oxide−semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET), giving a typical subthreshold swing of 62 mV/dec, within 4% of the thermal limit, on–off ratio ∼105, on-resistance ∼700 kΩ, contact resistance ∼30 kΩ, peak transconductance 1.2 μS/μm, and high-fidelity ac operation at frequencies up to 10 kHz. The device consists of a GaAs nanowire with an undoped core and heavily Be-doped shell. We carefully etch back the nanowire at the gate locations to obtain Schottky-barrier insulated gates while leaving the doped shell intact at the contacts to obtain low contact resistance. Our device opens a path to all-GaAs nanowire MESFET complementary circuits with simplified fabrication and improved performance.
The transport of deformable objects, including polymer particles, vesicles, and cells, has been a subject of interest for several decades where the majority of experimental and theoretical studies ...have been focused on circular tubes. Due to advances in microfluidics, there is a need to study the transport of individual deformable particles in rectangular microchannels where corner flows can be important. In this study, we report measurements of hydrodynamic mobility of confined polymeric particles, vesicles, and cancer cells in a linear microchannel with a square cross-section. Our operating conditions are such that the mobility is measured as a function of geometric confinement over the range 0.3 < λ < 1.5 and at specified particle Reynolds numbers that are within 0.1 < Rep < 2.5. The experimental mobility data of each of these systems is compared with the circular-tube theory of Hestroni, Haber, and Wacholder J. Fluid Mech. 41, 689–705 (1970) with modifications made for a square cross-section. For polymeric particles, we find that the mobility data agrees well over a large confinement range with the theory but under predicts for vesicles. The mobility of vesicles is higher in a square channel than in a circular tube, and does not depend significantly on membrane mechanical properties. The mobility of cancer cells is in good agreement with the theory up to λ ≈ 0.8, after which it deviates. Comparison of the mobility data of the three systems reveals that cancer cells have higher mobility than rigid particles but lower than vesicles, suggesting that the cell membrane frictional properties are in between a solid-like interface and a fluid bilayer. We explain further the differences in the mobility of the three systems by considering their shape deformation and surface flow on the interface. The results of this study may find potential applications in drug delivery and biomedical diagnostics.
High material quality InP-based multilayer nanopillar (NP) arrays are fabricated using a combination of self-assembly of silica particles for mask generation and dry etching. In particular, the NP ...arrays are made from user-defined epitaxial multilayer stacks with specific materials and layer thicknesses. An additional degree of flexibility in the structures is obtained by changing the lateral diameters of the NP multilayer stacks. Pre-defined NP arrays made from InGaAsP/InP and InGaAs/InP NPs are then used to generate substrate-free nanodisks of a chosen material from the stack by selective etching. A soft-stamping method is demonstrated to transfer the generated nanodisks with arbitrary densities onto Si. The transferred nanodisks retain their smooth surface morphologies and their designed geometrical dimensions. Both InP and InGaAsP nanodisks display excellent photoluminescence properties, with line-widths comparable to unprocessed reference epitaxial layers of similar composition. The multilayer NP arrays are potentially attractive for broad-band absorption in third-generation solar cells. The high optical quality, substrate-free InP and InGaAsP nanodisks on Si offer a new path to explore alternative ways to integrate III-V on Si by bonding nanodisks to Si. The method also has the advantage of re-usable III-V substrates for subsequent layer growth.
•InAs/GaSb T2SL infrared detector with 11.2 µm cut-off wavelength.•Quantum efficiency >30% (no AR-coating)•Dark current = 1.7E−5 A/cm2 at 60 K.
In this paper, a comparison of quantum efficiency and ...dark current densities of shallow etched and deep etched InAs/GaSb type-II superlattice photodiodes is presented. The detectors were tailored for space applications with measured cut-off wavelengths around 11.2 µm. Bias and temperature dependencies of the QE have been studied showing very low turn on bias (>−25 mV) and very small variation of the peak QE value with temperature. At 70 K, peak quantum efficiencies of shallow and deep etched devices were deduced to 34% and 30%, respectively (without antireflection coating). The difference was attributed to a larger collection area of shallow etched devices, with a collection range of approximately 22 µm outside of the defined pixel area. Diffusion limited dark currents were observed down to 60 K for both shallow and deep etched devices under low reverse bias (∼−200 mV) with dark current densities on the order of 1.7 × 10−5 A/cm2 at 60 K. A gradually increasing influence of generation-recombination (G-R) and trap-assisted tunneling (TAT) was observed at lower temperatures for high reverse bias. The lowest dark current densities were observed for deep etched photodiodes, on the order of 3 × 10−7 A/cm2 at 40 K (Vbias = −100 mV). Detector arrays were fabricated with deep etched 30 µm pitch pixels. Comparably low dark current densities were observed for the detector array pixels under low reverse bias as for the single pixel photodiodes, however a significant increase of the TAT dark current was observed under high reverse bias.
Objective: To examine precursors of adolescent conduct disorder (CD) in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), investigating the significance of childhood oppositional defiant ...disorder (ODD) and ADHD. Method: A total of 151 children with ADHD recruited from child psychiatric and pediatric clinics were assessed through standardized diagnostic interviews at ages 6 to 13 years and in adolescence 5 years later. Using multiple regression analysis, we assessed baseline ODD diagnosis and ODD, CD, and ADHD symptom scores as clinical predictors of adolescent CD diagnosis and symptom scores. Results: Childhood ODD (diagnosis and severity) was significantly associated with adolescent CD (diagnosis and severity), independent of childhood ADHD severity and childhood CD. Children with a diagnosis of ODD were almost three times more likely to develop CD in adolescence (odds ratio = 2.79, 95% CI 1.16-6.70, p = 0.02). Childhood ADHD severity predicted adolescent CD scores but not diagnosis of CD (although there was a trend toward association). The presence of at least one CD symptom in childhood predicted adolescent CD severity. Conclusions: ODD is a significant precursor of adolescent CD in children with ADHD independent of ADHD severity. Considering the negative prognosis of ADHD with comorbid CD, it is imperative that clinicians pay specific attention to the presence of childhood ODD behaviors. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)
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