MISTIQUE: Microwave-microfluidic Integrated System for Tackling Interdisciplinary Quantitative Experiments

Microwave concepts are increasingly being used in microfluidic devices to advance detection, monitoring and actuation of liquid mixtures in lab-on-a-chip applications thanks to the pioneering work that demonstrated capabilities of microwave sensing and heating. This exploratory work has demystified microwave techniques to the life science community, convinced the optical-based community into advantages of microwaves, and identified limitations of microwave sensing and heating.

Therefore, we believe now is the right time to bring further this research field on both the device and lagging system level, and comprehensively investigate simultaneous microwave sensing and heating on nL and μL volumes. This can be done by 1) using microwave-microfluidic devices (MMD) optimized from the multiphysics aspect for multi-frequency and multi-temperature sensing and heating, 2) applying signal waveforms on MMDs that are optimized (power and frequency modulation) for a given application, 3) co-designing the microwave measurement system (MMS) with MMDs, 4) conceiving the portable MMS adaptable to applications requiring the broadband and high power operation.

By truly exploring the entire design space available for co-design of consumable MMDs and the supporting MMS, we aim to find new microwave-microfluidic scientific discoveries and enable a new generation of technological solutions that will bring better understanding and possibilities to drive further interdisciplinary experiments.