A bubble-activated micropump with high-frequency flow reversal

With the increasing demand for thermal management in electronic cooling applications, the development of heat dissipation devices has become extremely important. This paper presents the development of a novel bubble-activated micropump with high-frequency flow reversal using embedded electrodes in a closed fluidic microchannel. This bubble-activated micropump consists of a microfluidic chamber structure and microelectrodes on a glass substrate that is assembled using a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastic sheet. First, the bubble-activated micropump was fabricated on a silicon substrate by spin-coating, curing, and molding using negative photoresist SU-8 2035 as the mold material. Second, a phosphate buffer solution (PBS) was introduced into the micropump chamber to increase the heat dissipation rate via a bubble-based actuator oscillating at a frequency of 300 Hz. The measured maximum flow rate was 37.8 μL/min at an applied voltage of 5 V. This study furthers the development of cooling systems using a bubble-activated design by achieving stable performance.