Term of Award

Spring 2025

Degree Name

Master of Science, Applied Physical Science

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Committee Chair

Dragos Amarie

Committee Member 1

H. J. Jason Liu

Committee Member 2

Clayton Heller

Abstract

Various microfluidic structures are devised to generate tunable, stable spatiotemporal chemical gradients for single-cell studies. This work addresses the role of Y-mixer junctions in generating nonlinear gradients by increasing the width of one arm (bias), which is suspected to cause premature diffusion within the mixer. This study introduced a cinching feature to narrow the wider arm locally and redefine the junctions of these biased Y-mixers using four novel geometries defined by a 5-micrometer drawing rule. Furthermore, three flow rate factors allowed us to explore the impact on the generated gradient landscapes. The results showed that the four novel designs similarly increased maximum concentration by an average of 10.8% for the largest mixer arm width and expanded the concentration range along the left side of the chamber. Also, the higher flow rate enhanced maximum chamber concentration by 15.6% and decreased the range along the left side of the chamber by up to 7.83%. Thus, cinching the Y-mixer junctions mitigates premature diffusion, and flow rate modulation optimizes gradient characteristics. Future work is needed to verify simulated results, parameterize channel dimensions based on flow rates, and conduct wet-lab tests to assess sedimentation risk.

OCLC Number

1520499881

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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