The ability to mix minute quantities of fluids is critical in a range of recent and emerging techniques in engineering, chemistry and life sciences, with applications as diverse as inkjet printing, pharmaceutical manufacturing, specialty and hazardous chemical manufacturing, DNA analysis and disease diagnosis.

The multidisciplinary nature of this field - intersecting engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, microtechnology and biotechnology - means that the community of engineers and scientists now engaged in developing microfluidic devices has entered the field from a variety of...