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Diffusion of microspheres in sealed and open microarrays
Author(s) -
Rieger B.,
Dietrich H.R.C.,
Doel L.R. Van Den,
Vliet L.J. Van
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
microscopy research and technique
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.536
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1097-0029
pISSN - 1059-910X
DOI - 10.1002/jemt.20128
Subject(s) - diffusion , brownian motion , viscosity , fick's laws of diffusion , radius , microsphere , diffusion process , materials science , evaporation , ethylene glycol , chemistry , analytical chemistry (journal) , nanotechnology , thermodynamics , chemical engineering , chromatography , composite material , physics , computer science , knowledge management , computer security , innovation diffusion , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , engineering
In several experiments, we study the diffusion of microspheres with different radii in microarrays filled with a variety of aqueous solutions of ethylene glycol. We study diffusion in open and closed (sealed) microarrays. In sealed nanoliter wells, the tracers show pure diffusion, whereas in open reactors, a radial outward‐directed evaporation‐induced liquid flow is superimposed onto the diffusion. In general, one of the following quantities can be calculated if the others are known: the temperature, the viscosity of the medium, the radius of the microbeads, or the diffusion constant. The estimated diffusion constants in closed microarrays are in good agreement with theoretical predictions based on the Brownian motion. We monitor the motion of the microbeads under a microscope and extract their paths in time from the digital recordings. Ambiguous paths due to the crossing of two trajectories can be detected. We show that low microsphere concentrations or high viscosities do not hamper a robust estimation of the diffusion parameters. Microsc. Res. Tech. 65:218–225, 2004. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.