Biomedical Microdevices 6:4, 341–347, 2004

C 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Manufactured in The Netherlands.

Electrowetting (EW)-Based Valve Combined with Hydrophilic

Teflon Microfluidic Guidance in Controlling Continuous
Fluid Flow
Ji-Yen Cheng∗ and Lo-Chang Hsiung
Research Center for Applied Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
E-mail: jycheng@gate.sinica.edu.tw

Abstract. Electrowetting (EW)-based techniques have been widely 1999). Furthermore, a selective surface modification tech-
used in manipulating discrete liquid. However, few articles discussed nique was applied to silicon microfluidic channels to cre-
the controlling of continuous fluid flow by using EW-based tech-
ate surface-tension-confined microstructures for manipu-
niques. In this paper, an EW-based valve combined with plasma-
modified Teflon surface, which serves as a microfluidic guidance, lating of biomaterials (Li et al., 2001). In addition, the
in controlling continuous fluid flow has been demonstrated. The hydrophilic/hydrophobic patterns had been deposited on
plasma-modified Teflon surface is firstly demonstrated for confining the substrates by a commercialized plotter and a modified
continuous fluid flow. The EW-based microfluidic device possesses pen to form a path for liquid flow (Lam et al., 2002). The
the functions of a valve and a microchannel without complex moving
mass printing of the hydrophilic/hydrophobic patterns on
parts and grooved microchannels. The quantitative characteristics
of the EW-based valve are also studied. Propylene carbonate (PC) is the substrates provides an inexpensive and fast method for
firstly demonstrated as the working liquid in the EW-based device production of disposable diagnostic devices. Moreover, a
because of its applications in parallel oligonucleotide synthesis. It is series of pressure-sensitive microfluidic gates to regulate
found that lower valve actuation voltage reduces the deterioration liquid flow have been successfully fabricated (Zhao et al.,
of the valve and improves the valve stability.
2003). Photolithography in combination with photocleav-
Key Words. electrowetting, microvalve, microfluidic guidance, con- able SAMs, was used to generate hydrophilic/hydrophobic
tinuous fluid flow, propylene carbonate surface patterns for fabricating microfluidic gates. Aque-
ous liquids flow only along the hydrophilic path-
ways when the pressure is maintained below a critical
value.
1. Introduction
Teflon is a highly insulating polymer well known for
its potential in electronics, optic, biomaterial and bioelec-
Electrowetting (EW)-based techniques have been widely
tronics (Makohliso et al., 1998). However, its surface is
used in manipulating discrete liquid (Lee et al., 2002;
extremely hydrophobic, which makes it unsuitable for use
Paik et al., 2003; Velev et al., 2003). However, it has
in areas involving adhesive bonding, coating and pattern-
not been used to control continuous liquid flow until the
ing. Therefore, many efforts have focused on Teflon sur-
reversible EW-based switching of two-phase flows was
face modification, primarily by chemical treatments (Rye,
demonstrated (Huh et al., 2003). The EW-based valve con-
1988; Siperko et al., 1989) and plasma treatments (Tan
trols continuous liquid without complex moving parts. It
et al., 1993; Cho et al., 1994; Winter et al., 1995), for
could be beneficial for the development of a cell/particle
transforming the extremely hydrophobic Teflon surface
sorting system.
into “relative hydrophilic”. In this work, we report the
Traditionally, grooved microchannel is the major
use of plasma-modified Teflon surface, which is relatively
choice for directing microflow. However, surface tension
hydrophilic, as the surface-tension-confined microfluidic
guided fluid motions has been demonstrated in recent
guidance.
years (Kataoka and Troian, 1999; Li et al., 2001; Lam
Propylene carbonate (PC) has been used in the
et al., 2002; Zhao et al., 2003). Comparing to conven-
light-directed parallel oligonucleotide synthesis (LeProust
tional etching processes, the manufacturing process of
et al., 2000) and the inkjet-printing oligonucleotide syn-
surface-tension-confined microfluidic guidance is sim-
thesizer (Hughes et al., 2001). In order to extend PC’s
pler. Therefore, using surface-tension-confined microflu-
application in biomedical microdevice, it is worthwhile
idic guidance may reduce the fabrication cost of
to investigate its behavior in the EW-based microfluidic
microfluidic devices. Several demonstrations of surface-
device.
tension-confined microfluidic guidance were reported.
The hydrophobic octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) layer
had been patterned on a hydrophilic silicon dioxide sub-
∗ Corresponding
strate to direct microscopic flow (Kataoka and Troian, author.

341
342 Cheng and Hsiung
In this paper, the EW-based valve combined with the
plasma-modified Teflon microfluidic guidance in control-
ling continuous fluid flow has been demonstrated. The
characteristics of the EW-based valve device are investi-
gated. PC is firstly demonstrated as the working liquid in
the EW-based device. To our knowledge, PC is the first
organic liquid used in EW study.
2. Experiments
2.1. Testing system
The testing system is shown schematically in Figure 1.
Liquid is injected into the testing device by a constant
pressure pump. The constant pressure pump controls the
hydraulic pressure in the chamber of testing device. A
0.01”-inner-diameter tubing (1527XL, UPCHURCH) is
used as the injection tube. The actuation AC voltage source
for the EW-based valve is set at frequency of 2 KHz. The
liquid flow images are taken by a zoom lens (MLM3X-MP,
computar) and a CCD video camera (Fire-i400, unibrain).
The frames of interest are digitized and analyzed by a
computer.
Figure 2 shows the illustrations of the progress of the
liquid motions in a microfluidic guidance during the elec-
trical actuation of the EW-based valve. After liquid is
pumped into the chamber of the testing device, it flows
along the hydrophilic plasma-modified Teflon microflu-
idic guidance.
When liquid reaches the border of the hydrophobic EW-
based valve, without applied voltage, the liquid is blocked
as shown in Figure 2(a). Successively, the electrical po-
tential is applied to the EW-based valve, and then the hy-
drophobic valve surface is transformed into hydrophilic.
The liquid then flows through the EW-based valve and
Fig. 1. System setup for the operation of the EW-based valve and microfluidic guidance.
the microfluidic guidance beyond the valve as shown in
Figures 2(b) and (c).
2.2. Fabrication of testing device
The manufacturing process of the EW-based valve and
the microfluidic guidance is schematically shown in Fig-
ure 3. The device consists of an unpatterned ITO glass
(243735X0, Merck) cover plate and a patterned ITO glass
substrate plate.
A photoresist layer is patterned on the ITO glass sub-
strate plate with inlet/outlet holes as shown in Figure 3(a).
The ITO patterns of the ITO glass substrate plate are ob-
tained by wet etching as shown in Figure 3(b). The pho-
toresist is then stripped away before 500 nm Teflon layer
(AF1601S, Dupont) is spin-coated on the patterned ITO
glass substrate plate as shown in Figure 3(c). Both the
cover plate and the substrate plate are dip-coated with flu-
orosilane (16585, Lancaster) to improve the adhesion be-
tween Teflon and the glass plate before the Teflon coating.
Successively, a photoresist layer is patterned on the Teflon
layer as Figure 3(d). The fluorosurfactant (FC4432, 3M)
is blended with the photoresist to improve the wettability
of the photoresist solution on the Teflon layer. An RIE
system (plasmalab 80 plus, OXFORD) is used to generate
argon plasma (the chamber pressure of the RIE system
is 100 mTorr. Argon gas flow rate is 20 sccm. Forward
power is 45 W. Treating time is 20 s.) to modify hydropho-
bic Teflon surface to be relatively hydrophilic as shown in
Figures 3(e) and (f). An unpatterned ITO glass cover plate
is also spin-coated with a 500 nm-thick Teflon. Finally,
two plates are stacked together by a stainless fixture to
form an enclosed microfluidic guidance. A Teflon spacer
is used to define the gap size between the two ITO glass
plates, shown in Figure 3(g).
 Electrowetting (EW)-Based Valve Combined with Hydrophilic Teflon Microfluidic Guidance 343

Fig. 2. The progress of the liquid motion during the electrical actuation of the EW-based valve. Liquid flows along plasma-modified Teflon
microfluidic guidance and is blocked at the border of EW-based valve without electrical actuation (a). Liquid flows through EW-based valve after the
valve is electrically actuated (b). Liquid passes the EW-based valve with electrical actuation of the valve, and then flows along the plasma-modified
Teflon microfluidic guidance (c).

Fig. 3. Fabrication process of the EW-based valve and the hydrophilic microfluidic guidance.
344 Cheng and Hsiung
Fig. 4. Electrowetting characteristics of the Teflon layer revealed by
PC contact angle change. Voltage is applied to both top and bottom
ITO layers.
2.3. Contact angle measurements
Contact angles are measured by images taken by the zoom
lens and the CCD video camera. The uncertainty of the
contact angle measurement system is about 3◦ . The aver-
age of three measurements is used for analysis.
3. Results and Discussions
The hydrophobicity differences between the unmodified
Teflon surface and the modified Teflon surface is shown
in Figure 4. The contact angles are observed from the
side of two ITO glass plates that has 250 µm gap, shown
Fig. 5. Contact angle changes of PC in the symmetric parallel-plate system (a) and asymmetric parallel-plate system (b). The images are taken from
the side of the system. Voltage is applied to both top and bottom ITO layers.
Table 1. Contact angle changes of propylene carbonate at various
actuation voltages in the parallel-plate systems
Symmetric Asymmetric
Voltage parallel-plate systema parallel-plate systemb
40 VAC ∼4◦ (top/bottom) ∼10◦ (top)
∼3◦ (bottom)
70 VAC ∼12◦ (top/bottom) ∼22◦ (top)
∼5◦ (bottom)
a Both top and bottom Teflon layers are unmodified.
b Top Teflon layer is unmodified, while bottom Teflon layer is modified.
in the inset of Figure 4. The top plate is a raw ITO glass
plate while the bottom plate is coated with an unmodified
or modified Teflon layer. The thickness of the unmodified
Teflon layer is 500 nm. The modified Teflon layer is ob-
tained by plasma-etching of the unmodified Teflon layer.
According to the data in Figure 4, the hydrophobicity dif-
ference between the unmodified Teflon surface and the
modified Teflon surface are observed at various applied
voltages.
The hydrophobicity difference between the unmodi-
fied and the modified Teflon layer is caused by a new C1s
species (at 289.3 eV) presenting at the modified Teflon
surface (Clark and Dilks, 1979; Kaplan and Dilk, 1984;
Occhiello et al., 1989; Herrera-Fierro et al., 1993; Tan
et al., 1993; Cho et al., 1994). The possible surface groups
of the new C1s species are O C O, O C O, C O and
CF-CF2 .
Figure 5 and Table 1 show the contact angle of propy-
lene carbonate (PC) in the parallel-plate systems, where
two Teflon-coated ITO glass plates are stacked together
with a thin gap.
 Electrowetting (EW)-Based Valve Combined with Hydrophilic Teflon Microfluidic Guidance
In the symmetric parallel-plate system (Figure 5(a)),
PC is introduced into the 250 µm gap between the two
ITO glass plates that have same Teflon surface properties.
Both the top and the bottom ITO plates are coated with
500 nm unmodified Teflon layer. The contact angles on
both surfaces change into ∼4◦ (from ∼86◦ to ∼82◦ ) when
40 VAC is applied. The contact angle variation increases
to ∼12◦ (from ∼86◦ to ∼74◦ ) when 70 VAC is applied.
In the asymmetric parallel-plate system (Figure 5(b)),
both the top and the bottom ITO plates are coated with
500 nm Teflon layer. The Teflon layer at the bottom is
plasma-modified after Teflon coating, while the Teflon
layer on the top plate is not modified. Without applied
voltage, the contact angle difference between the modified
Teflon surface (bottom) and the unmodified Teflon surface
(top) is ∼22◦ (∼69◦ vs. ∼91◦ ). Moreover, the contact an-
gle on the unmodified Teflon surface in the asymmetric
parallel-plate system (∼91◦ ) is larger than that in the sym-
metric parallel-plate system (∼86◦ ). Considering that the
uncertainty of the measurement system is about 3◦ , the
contact angle difference can not be over-emphasized at
this stage.
When 40 VAC is applied to the asymmetric parallel-
plate system, the contact angle variation on the modified
Teflon surface is only ∼3◦ (from ∼69◦ to ∼66◦ ). How-
ever, the contact angle on the unmodified Teflon surface
changes into ∼10◦ (from ∼91◦ to ∼81◦ ). The contact an-
gle variation on the modified Teflon surface and that on the
unmodified Teflon surface are asymmetric. Successively,
when 70 VAC is applied, it is found that the asymmet-
ric contact angle variation is more prominent (∼5◦ for
the modified Teflon surface and ∼22◦ for the unmodified
Teflon surface).
The total voltage drop in the parallel-plate system con-
sists of the voltage drop across the dielectric layer on the
Fig. 6. The observed liquid motion during the actuation of the EW-based valve. Liquid flows through the modified Teflon guidance and stops at the
border of EW-based valve without electrical actuation (a). Liquid flows through the EW-based valve (b), and then passes it after 40 V AC is applied to
actuate the valve (c). Liquid flow fills both the valve and the guidance (d).
345
bottom plate and that across the dielectric layer on the
top plate, if the electric resistance of the testing droplet is
negligible comparing to that of the dielectric layers (Cho
et al., 2003). Furthermore, the contact angle variation on
the dielectrics surface is directly related to the actual volt-
age drop across the dielectric layer, when the contact angle
is not in the saturation state (Cho et al., 2003).
The resistivity of PC and of Teflon are 2.4 M
-cm and
>1012 M
-cm (Janting et al., 2000), respectively. The
resistance of PC is much smaller than that of Teflon layer
in the parallel-plate systems (Figure 5). Therefore, the
resistance of PC can be neglected. Furthermore, according
to the data in Figure 4, the PC contact angles in Figure 5
are not in the saturation state.
In the parallel-plate systems (Figure 5), when 70 VAC
is applied, the contact angle variation on the unmodified
Teflon surface in the asymmetric parallel-plate system
is ∼10◦ larger than that in symmetric parallel-plate sys-
tem (∼22◦ vs. ∼12◦ ). This suggests that the voltage drop
across the unmodified Teflon in the asymmetric parallel-
plate system is larger than that across the unmodified
Teflon in the symmetric parallel-plate system. It is pos-
sible that the argon plasma modification thins the thick-
ness of the modified Teflon layer, so that the resistance
of modified Teflon layer decreases. This in turn decreases
the voltage drop across the modified Teflon layer. In the
meanwhile, the voltage drop across the unmodified Teflon
layer increases and results in larger contact angle change.
For the purpose of microfluidic application, the results
from Figure 5 are helpful in understanding the operation
mechanism of the EW-based valve. Figure 6 shows an
EW-based valve combined with a plasma-modified Teflon
guidance for controlling continuous liquid flow.
In Figure 6, the gap size between the substrate and
cover plates is 20 µm. The injection pressure of the
346 Cheng and Hsiung
PC is about 46 pa. PC flows through the 750 µm-wide
plasma-modified Teflon guidance and stops at the bor-
der of EW-based valve as shown in Figure 6(a). The sur-
face hydrophobicity difference between the guidance and
the valve is large enough to block the PC flow. Succes-
sively, 40 VAC is applied to the electrode, which is be-
neath the valve and the guidance, to actuate the valve.
The hydrophobic valve surface is thus transformed into
hydrophilic. The PC then flows through the 150 µm-long
EW-based valve as shown in Figures 6(b) and (c). Finally,
the PC flow fills both the valve and the guidance as shown
in Figure 6(d). From the result in Figure 6, the capability
of the EW-based valve in controlling continuous liquid
without moving parts is verified. Concerning the long-
term stability of the flow guidance, the hydrophobicity
difference between the valve and the flow guidance is still
prominent after the devices were fabricated for 6 months.
After qualitative descriptions of the working mecha-
nism of the device, the quantitative characteristics of the
EW-based valve have also been studied by observing the
PC flow rates across the valve as shown in Figure 7. The
liquid flow rate through a 250 µm-wide and 150 µm-long
valve is measured. A 500 µm-wide microfluidic guid-
ance is used for flow guiding ahead of the valve. When
70 VAC is applied to actuate the valve, the flow rate is
about 5,000 µm/sec although the deviations of the flow
rate are quite large during valve actuations. Furthermore,
after the valve is actuated for 125 times, the un-activated
valve can no longer block the PC flow. This indicates that
the hydrophobic valve surface has been transformed into
hydrophilic permanently. This also reveals that the valve
functionality is deteriorated after repeated actuations in
70 VAC . It is speculated that surface damage occurs in the
valve area.
To prolong the functionality of the valve, lower actua-
tion voltage (40 VAC ) is tested. Comparing to the devia-
tions of flow rate in the 70 VAC actuation, the deviations of
Fig. 7. The flow rates of propylene carbonate across the valve zone.
flow rate in the 40 VAC actuation is smaller while the flow
rate reduces to ∼2,000 µm/sec. Moreover, the valve is ca-
pable of blocking the PC flow after the valve is repeatedly
actuated for 1000 times. These results reveal that the lower
actuation voltage can decrease the valve deterioration and
improve the valve stability.
A wider valve (500 µm-wide, 150 µm-long) is then
tested to study the effect of the valve size on the flow
rate. The 750 µm-wide guidance is used to confine the
flow ahead of the valve. The actuation voltage is 40 VAC .
As shown in Figure 7, no obvious flow rate differences
are found comparing to the flow rate in 250 µm-wide
valve (actuated in 40 VAC ). Nevertheless, the valve is still
operational after 1000 time actuations. In summary, no
obvious effect of the valve size on the flow rate is observed.
The response time of the EW valve can be estimated by
the PC flow rate acrossing the valve length. The response
time is ∼30 ms in 70 VAC actuation and ∼60 ms in 40 VAC
actuation.
4. Conclusions
The EW-based valve combined with the plasma-modified
Teflon surface, which serves as the microfluidic guidance,
in controlling continuous fluid flow is demonstrated. This
paper is the first demonstration on the use of plasma-
modified Teflon surface for confining continuous fluid
flow. The EW-based microfluidic device possesses the
functions of a valve and a microchannel without com-
plex moving parts and grooved microchannels. Propylene
carbonate (PC) is firstly used as the working liquid in
the EW-based device because of its capability in oligonu-
cleotide synthesis. This work is the first example of EW
effect of organic liquid. It is found that the argon plasma
modification thins the plasma-modified Teflon layer, so
that the resistance of plasma-modified Teflon layer de-
creases. Moreover, lower valve actuation voltage reduces
the deterioration of the valve and improves the valve sta-
bility. The valve response time is estimated to be ∼ 30 ms
when 70 VAC actuation voltage is used. This work may
provide an alternative approach for the development of
microfluidic systems.
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