Biosensor Enhancement Using Grooved Micromixers: Part I, Numerical Studies

In this study we examine the use of the staggered herringbone mixer (SHM) to increase the efficiency of analyte delivery to a planar biosensor surface. Although there has been an extensive amount of research regarding the optimization of the SHM for mixing purposes, there has been very little work regarding the use of said micromixers for sensing purposes. Here, we use numerical methods to examine the effect of the SHM geometry on the efficiency of analyte delivery to a biosensor surface. We show the level of sensing enhancement of an SHM-based sensing chamber over that of an unmixed chamber has a strong dependence on the SHM geometry, the Peclet number, and the overall sensor length. The results presented herein are applicable to a very wide range of biosensor transduction mechanisms and target analytes.