An Impedance Sensing Platform for Monitoring Heterogeneous Connectivity and Diagnostics in Lab-on-a-Chip Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces an impedance sensing platform capable of real-time, fast detection and diagnostics of physical connections in lab-on-a-chip systems, enhancing reliability in heterogeneous microfluidic devices.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel impedance sensing platform that enables rapid, real-time monitoring of multiple physical connections in digital microfluidics systems, which was not previously achievable.

Findings

Fast detection of single physical connections within milliseconds

Capability to determine droplet location after connection establishment

Scalable system supporting multiple channels

Abstract

Reliable hardware connectivity is vital in heterogeneous integrated systems. For example, in digital microfluidics lab-on-a-chip systems, there are hundreds of physical connections required between a micro-electro-mechanical fabricated device and the driving system that can be remotely located on a printed-circuit-board. Unfortunately, the connection reliability cannot be checked or monitored by vision-based detection methods that are commonly used in the semiconductor industry. Therefore, a sensing platform that can be seamlessly integrated into existing digital microfluidics systems and provide real-time monitoring of multi-connectivity is highly desired. Here, we report an impedance sensing platform that can provide fast detection of a single physical connection in timescales of milli-seconds. Once connectivity is established, the same set-up can be used to determine droplet location. The sensing system can be scaled up to support multiple channels or applied to other heterogeneously integrated systems that require real-time monitoring and diagnostics of multi-connectivity systems.