UTMN Doctoral Students Develop Adaptive Fluidic Elements
UTMN Doctoral Students Develop Adaptive Fluidic Elements
In recent years, there have been a number of breakthroughs in the development of adaptive fluidic elements technologies.
UTMN doctoral students and researchers from the X-BIO Laboratory of Photonics and Microfluidics, Nikolay Kubochkin, Denis Kluev and Alexandr Malyuk won a Russian Foundation for Basic Research grant with their project on ‘Using Marangoni effects for producing adaptive photonics and optical elements’.

The project aims to develop minuscule adaptive optical systems characterized by their high reliability, the durability of their working elements and their wide range of functions such as fast autofocusing and reorienting optical axis, image stability and optical signal tracing.
As part of the project, the researchers will study patterns of changes in thin layers of liquid and microdroplet surface geometry caused by localized laser beam heating and humidity changes.
“In recent years, there have been several breakthroughs in the development of adaptive fluidic elements technologies based on different physical mechanisms such as electrowetting, dielectrophoresis and refractive index control,” said Alexandr Malyuk. “Some of the developments have already become commercial products. However, there are still numerous tasks to be solved and products to improve”.
In their research, the young scientists will use thermal, concentrational and evaporative Marangoni convections to manage the optical characteristics of liquid elements (sitting droplets, thin films, and multilayer fluidic systems). As a result, the researchers plan to develop new adaptive fluidic optical elements, in particular, liquid lenses and a liquid optical attenuator and modulator.
Source: UTMN Department of Strategic Communications
Link to Russian version: https://www.utmn.ru/presse/novosti/nauka-segodnya/521552/

The project aims to develop minuscule adaptive optical systems characterized by their high reliability, the durability of their working elements and their wide range of functions such as fast autofocusing and reorienting optical axis, image stability and optical signal tracing.
As part of the project, the researchers will study patterns of changes in thin layers of liquid and microdroplet surface geometry caused by localized laser beam heating and humidity changes.
“In recent years, there have been several breakthroughs in the development of adaptive fluidic elements technologies based on different physical mechanisms such as electrowetting, dielectrophoresis and refractive index control,” said Alexandr Malyuk. “Some of the developments have already become commercial products. However, there are still numerous tasks to be solved and products to improve”.
In their research, the young scientists will use thermal, concentrational and evaporative Marangoni convections to manage the optical characteristics of liquid elements (sitting droplets, thin films, and multilayer fluidic systems). As a result, the researchers plan to develop new adaptive fluidic optical elements, in particular, liquid lenses and a liquid optical attenuator and modulator.
Source: UTMN Department of Strategic Communications
Link to Russian version: https://www.utmn.ru/presse/novosti/nauka-segodnya/521552/