Surface Microfluidic Patterning and Transporting Organic Small Molecules

A microfluidic method is developed to pattern organic small molecules directly in air. When heated to above its melting point, a powder melts into liquid drops which propagate along the pattern area. The method can further be applied to transport other dye molecules, to create multicolored patterns in one step. The fluorescence microscopy image shows rhodamine B (red), fluorescein (green), and calcein blue (blue) doped N-ethyl-d-glucamine on 100-μm Au lines.