2017/04/30 by Tatiana V. Nizkaya, Evgeny S. Asmolov, Olga I. Vinogradova
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advection #Brownian motion #Computer science #Crossover #Materials science #Mechanics #Microfluidic and Bio-sensing Technologies #Microfluidic and Capillary Electrophoresis Applications #Microfluidics #Mixing (physics) #Nanopore and Nanochannel Transport Studies #Nanotechnology #Physics #Statistical physics #Thermodynamics #Transverse plane #Turbulence #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.96.033109
published as Phys. Rev. E 96, 033109 (2017) · 7 pages, 8 figures
arxiv created 2017/08/28 · openalex publication_date 2017/09/19 · arxiv updated 2017/09/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider pressure-driven flows in wide microchannels, and discuss how a transverse shear, generated by misaligned superhydrophobic walls, impacts cross-sectional spreading of Brownian particles. We show that such a transverse shear can induce an advective superdiffusion, which strongly enhances dispersion of particles compared to a normal diffusion, and that maximal cross-sectional spreading corresponds to a crossover between its subballistic and superballistic regimes. This allows us to argue that an advective superdiffusion can be used for boosting dispersion of particles at smaller Péclet numbers compared to known concepts of passive microfluidic mixing. This implies that our superdiffusion scenario allows one efficient mixing of much smaller particles or using much thinner microchannels than methods, which are currently being exploited.