Theoretical Microfluidics: 18 (Oxford Master Series in Physics) - Tapa dura

An excellent text, very well written and pedagogically sound. Clear, concise, and complete, it explains the theoretical framework of microfluidics to a broad audience. (Kari Dalnoki-Veress, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario)

Written in a highly pedagogical style. The reader, whether graduate, undergraduate or researcher will find this book extremely useful. (Patrick Tabeling, ESPCI Paris)

The field is rapidly evolving to the point where it will become valuable, and indeed necessary, to do calculations to design real devices. This book offers a prescription for doing this. (David Weitz, Harvard University)

Microfluidics is a young and rapidly expanding scientific discipline, which deals with fluids and solutions in miniaturized systems, the so-called lab-on-a-chip systems. It has applications in chemical engineering, pharmaceutics, biotechnology and medicine. As the lab-on-a-chip systems grow in complexity, a proper theoretical understanding becomes increasingly important.

The basic idea of the book is to provide a self-contained formulation of the theoretical framework of microfluidics, and at the same time give physical motivation and examples from lab-on-a-chip technology. After three chapters introducing microfluidics, the governing equations for mass, momentum and energy, and some basic flow solutions, the following 14 chapters treat hydraulic resistance/compliance, diffusion/dispersion, time-dependent flow, capillarity, electro- and magneto-hydrodynamics, thermal transport, two-phase flow, complex flow patterns and acousto-fluidics, as well as the new fields of opto- and nano-fluidics. Throughout the book simple models with analytical solutions are presented to provide the student with a thorough physical understanding of order of magnitudes and various selected microfluidic phenomena and devices.

The book grew out of a set of well-tested lecture notes. It is with its many pedagogical exercises designed as a textbook for an advanced undergraduate or first-year graduate course. It is also well suited for self-study.