본 논문에서는 시료의 희석비를 조절할 수 있는 $2{ imes}6$ well 어레이 디지털 희석소자를 제안한다. 본 소자는 정해진 체적을 가지는 Well 의 경계면에 경계밸브(Inter-well Valve)를 설치하고, 이를 선택적으로 개폐하여 구조적 변경 없이 희석비를 조절할 수 있다. 제안된 희석소자는 희석비를 선형 또는 지수적으로 희석 오차 17% 이내에서 조절 할 수 있을 뿐만 아니라, 희석된 시료의 체적을 정확하게 제어하여 이종시료와 17.7% 오차 이내에서 희석된 시료를 반응시킬 수 있다.
We present a digital dilution chip comprising a $2{ imes}6$ array of wells; the chip can be employed to change the dilution ratio as well as to initiate reactions among diluted samples by using the inter-well valve around the well. In previous dilution devices, streams comprising sample and dilution solutions were merged and separated by a branched microchannel. Therefore, the dilution ratio could not be changed until the structure of the branched microchannel was changed. The present device merges and splits the wells filled with sample or dilution solution by controlling inter-well valves around the wells. Thus, it is possible to change the dilution ratio by changing the sequence in which merging and splitting sequence of each well filled with sample or dilution solution. In experiments, we found that the chip could be used to change linear or exponential dilution ratios within an error of 16.7% and to initiate reactions among the samples within a reaction error of 17.7%.
