Hidden in Plain Sight The History, Science, and Engineering of Microfluidic Technology

Hidden from view, microfluidics underlies a variety of devices that are essential to our lives, from inkjet printers to glucometers for the monitoring of diabetes. Microfluidics—which refers to the technology of miniature fluidic devices and the study of fluids at submillimeter levels—is invisible to most of us because it is hidden beneath ingenious user interfaces. In this book, Albert Folch, a leading researcher in microfluidics, describes the development and use of key microfluidic devices. He explains not only the technology but also the efforts, teams, places, and circumstances that enabled these inventions.
Folch reports, for example, that the inkjet printer was one of the first microfluidic devices invented, and traces its roots back to nineteenth-century discoveries in the behavior of fluid jets. He also describes how rapid speed...