10w5035 Small scale hydrodynamics: microfluidics and thin films

Arriving Sunday, February 7 and departing Friday, February 12, 2010

Organizers: Richard Craster (University of Alberta), G. M. Homsy (University of California, Santa Barbara), Demetrios Papageorgiou (Imperial College London).

Confirmed Participants

Press Release: Small scale hydrodynamics: microfluidics and thin films

Information for Participants

Schedule (PDF file)

Mailing List

Objectives

Scientists working on microfluidics, and thin films, often operate in disparate and disconnected communities. The lead journals and scientific meetings are often quite different and often have different foci. The sheer pace of progress means that many ideas and avenues are possibly being pursued in parallel. Additionally, there is the lost opportunity for interdisciplinary approaches that enable quantum leaps forward in understanding and development of both new devices and new mathematical approaches. There is no obvious venue where experimentalists, modellers, and applied mathematicians from the two communities are brought into contact with the specific aim of identifying areas ripe for synergistic advances. This workshop will provide exactly this venue.

Hence, the main objective of this workshop is to bring together the leading researchers in microfluidics and thin films from across several disciplines in order to foster awareness and the cross-disciplinary transfer of ideas. This is best achieved in a workshop format. It is envisaged that the broad and interdisciplinary nature of the participants will lead to a lively workshop characterised by interaction and discussion.

This initial forum may also provide the necessary impetus for the establishment of a regular biennial interdisciplinary workshop on microfluidics, as has happened in other fields with which the organizers are familiar. Future workshops would be held outside of BIRS and hopefully would be self-supporting: the role of BIRS in bringing together such a diverse group of participants will be a key initial step. The proximity of the National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) will be utilised and it is proposed that a satellite meeting take place, post-workshop, in Edmonton. Staff from NINT, see invitees, will participate in the main workshop and have expressed their enthusiasm to do so.

A provisional program:

Since the objectives are to bring together a rather diverse group of investigators in small scale hydrodynamics and microfluidics respectively, we have put significant thought into the scheduling of presentations in order to achieve that goal. We have purposely mixed the two communities in a given session so as to avoid a 'phase separation' whereby one community dominates a particular session or day at the expense of the other. We have also planned a free afternoon midweek so that participants can meet informally and have time to digest the information presented in the first 2 1/2 days.

Day One. Microfluidics: Experiments and Observations. The purpose is to open the workshop with experimentalists talking about phenomena that they do and, more importantly, do not understand. This then provides challenges for the theoreticians and modellers to discuss and focus upon. The focus of this day will be upon applications and experiments, in particular covering i) Electrokinetic effects ii) Microfluidic devices iii) Bio-microfluidics iv) Micro-mixing v) Chemical reactions vi) Self-assembly.

Day Two. A discussion of the models available, their successes and failures. The mathematical techniques that are available to give predictions and further understanding will be outlined. Both applications and fundamental phenomena will be discussed. The talks will cover: i) Electrohydrodynamics. ii) Instabilities. iii) Jet and droplet breakup. iv) Mixing on the microscale. v) Rheological models of complex fluids. vi) Singularity formation: rupture and breakup.

Day Three (Morning). Mathematical analysis and numerical simulations: Analysis has a role to play in distinguishing those models that are well- or ill-posed. Uniqueness and existence, also singularity formation near rupture or breakup is important. Accurate numerical simulations are vital to augment the modelling and recent advances will be discussed. The coverage here will be of: i) Dewetting models I. ii) Contact line dynamics. iii) Direct numerical simulations.

(Afternoon) This will be free for one-on-one and informal discussions. This will allow time for participants to consider the material presented so far. The free afternoon will be followed by a relatively early dinner, a poster session, and an informal evening session which will invite short impromtu presentations and video/multimedia presentation.

Day Four (Morning) Surfaces: The interactions between fluids and surfaces are often a key element in applications. Recent advances in surface treatments have allowed the ability to tailor a surface to a particular application, and to create fundamentally new surface phases. The nanoengineering of structured surfaces created by electric fields and the patterning of substrates by dewetting phenomena are closely related to microfluidics. i) Structured surfaces. ii) Pattern formation. iii) Thin film dynamics. iv) Dewetting models II.

(Afternoon) Discussion on opportunities for synergism, interdisciplinary work, and future interactions. It is essential that active discussion and interaction between the participants takes place. The afternoon session is set aside for focussed discussion groups which will be self-organised based on the topics that have most excited the participants. Suggestions at this stage are: electrokinetics, interfacial instabilities, modelling microfluidic devices, superhydrophobic surfaces.

Each discussion group will be chaired by a speaker from one of the earlier days and initiated by a short summary/ presentation. The purpose being to identify open problems, experimental and theoretical issues and to create an atmosphere for scientific discussion.

Day Five. Emerging Applications, Summary Session and Workshop Conclusion. The session will take over from the discussion groups of the previous day. Three of the senior, well-established, participants will be invited to give longer plenary style talks which lay down their vision of where their piece of the subject is, or should be, going. Thereby closing off the workshop on a forward looking note, a brief summary session will also discuss future meetings and interactions.

The organisers have considerable experience in organising meetings and workshops: RVC co-organised the recent Euromech workshop on thin films and jet breakup, (Euromech 490 in 2007) and has organised or co-organised sessions at the European Geophysical Union on Fluid Mechanics. GMH has organized a number of national and international meetings, including 3 one - week long IUTAM Symposia and recently, a two week long NSF-sponsored PASI (Panamerican Advanced Study Institute) in Argentina. In addition, he has served on a number of Scientific Organizing Committees, including the European Coating Flow Symposium (twice), 2 Euromech meetings, (including two on thin film hydrodynamics), and Eurotherm 84 (Belgium, 2009), in addition to chairing many NSF and NASA review panels. DTP has organized or co-organized several international conferences including an AMS-IMA-SIAM Summer Research Conference, all five Frontier in Applied and Computational Mathematics Conferences from 2004-08. In addition he has organized or co-organized several fluid dynamics sessions at the annual meeting of the AIChE and SIAM.

Invitees: We have aimed for an approximately 50/50 split between scientists who are explicitly in Mathematics departments and those scientists from other disciplines. They represent many of the world's leading or emerging experts in their respective fields, and the majority of them have already indicated an interest in attending the workshop (the stars indicate acceptance). In line with the BIRS guidelines and objectives, we have made a special effort to invite women and younger colleagues, denoted by (W) and (Y) respectively.