A shuttlecock optical rotator-its design, fabrication and evaluation for a microfluidic mixer

An optically driven microrotator is proposed for fluidic mixing in future micrototal analysis systems (/spl mu/-TAS). The rotation mechanism, optical torque and microflow around the rotator are analyzed, and the rotator is fabricatied both by photolithography and photoforming methods. The microflow fields generated by the optical rotation are then experimentally visualized by both tracer and optical methods, and the velocity vectors and flux amount around the rotator are analyzed for the evaluation of the mixing performance of the microfluids.