Using breakdown phenomenon as mobile magnetic field sensor in microfluidics

Abstract

Sensing magnetization and enhancing dynamics performances is essential while studying wireless magnetic mobile robots. Sensing physical parameters in microfluidic environments has strongly been demanded in various lab-on-a-chip applications as well. In this paper, we propose mobile microrobots as mobile sensor in microfluidics. We develop an original environment for highresolution dynamic tracking and analysis in microfluidic chips. Studying robot dynamics in low Reynolds fluid with no magnetic sensor in the chip is challenging as the field distribution and robot magnetization are not well known. Our intended goal is to explore intrinsic magneto-fluidic sensing capacities to collect more information on the microsystem. We successfully integrate our robot into a transparent microfluidic chip for high-temporal resolution analysis of dynamics. We develop an electromagnetic setup allowing complete remote control (at low power) of rotational behaviour. We study a breakdown phenomenon up to 1kHz signal and develop a scalar method analyzing rotational dynamics to enhance their sensing capacity.