Producing droplets in parallel microfluidic systems

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2006 Oct;74(4 Pt 2):046306. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.74.046306. Epub 2006 Oct 23.

Abstract

We study the dynamics of two microfluidic droplets emitters placed in parallel. We observe complex dynamical behavior, including synchronization, quasiperiodicity, and chaos. This dynamics has a considerable impact on the properties of the resulting emulsions: chaotic and quasi-periodic regimes give rise to polydispersed emulsions with poorly controllable characteristics, whereas synchronized regimes generate well-controlled monodispersed emulsions. We derive a dynamical model that reproduces the trends observed in the experiment.