Special Issue on Microfluidics: Theory and Applications

This special issue from the Journal of the Indian Institute of Science is dedicated to the topic of microfluidics, which essentially deals with fundamentals and applications of fluid dynamics over miniaturized (typically, micron or sub-micron) scales. With phenomenal advancements in microfabrication technology over the past decade, rapid developments have taken place in the practical realization of microfluidic systems on a small portable credit card sized device, typically known as lab-on-a-chip or micro-total-analysis-system. Unlike large-scale flows, for flows at these diminutive length scales, physical issues such as interfacial interactions and transport of charged species can become the dominant phenomena. These interactions change the nature of fluid flow significantly and add interesting perspectives to the fundamental governing equations of hydrodynamics. On an application side, it is said that microfluidics is to small-scale flow what the wind tunnel is for large-scale flows. Thus, microfluidic platforms have increasingly being used as mimics to understand flows through complex systems such as porous media and membranes. Finally, the application of microfluidic systems to biomedical applications is widely expected to be the holy grail of research this domain. In particular, the advent of microfluidics is expected to revolutionize the realm of point-of-care diagnostics altogether, especially in the perspectives of their applications in low-cost resource-limited settings.