On the pinning of interfaces on micropillar edges

Microsystems for biotechnology often make use of pillars to perform the targeted microfluidic functions. In many cases the role of the pillars is to block or maintain fixed an interface between two immiscible fluids. This phenomenon is usually called pinning. The pining principle is used for capillary valves, liquid-liquid extraction devices, etc. It is common to estimate the pinning efficiency by considering mathematically perfect edges. In reality, microfabricated edges always show some smoothness that can be modeled by a small curvature radius. In this work, we investigate the pinning on square, circular, triangular, and diamond-shaped pillars, and analyze the anchoring on the upstream edges (first pinning conditions) and possibly on the downstream edges (second pinning conditions). It is shown that pinning efficiency decreases very quickly with the curvature radius of the pillar edge. It is concluded that the quality of the microfabrication is essential. Especially oxidation of the silicon reduces considerably the pinning efficiency. Moreover, it is shown that square pillars pin better an interface than triangular pillars. For triangular pillars, a pillar angle-angle between two facets-optimal for pinning has been determined that depends on the quality of microfabrication. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.