Sharif Digital Repository

We present the rarefaction effects on diffusive mass transport in micro- and nanoscales using the results of direct simulation Monte Carlo DSMC method. Unlike the previous investigations, the momentum and heat contributions are eliminated from the computations via uniform velocity, pressure, and temperature field considerations. The effects of global Knudsen number on the diffusion phenomenon are studied for the same Peclet number and a unique mixer shape. The results indicate that there is considerable weakening in diffusion mechanism for high Knudsen number cases. As a result, the non-dimensional diffusive mass fluxes would decrease and the non-dimensional mixing length would increase as... 

The present study, deals with a new mixing technique using a two-phase electrode array, which is charged with alternating current (AC) signals, located in specific parts of the geometry. This significantly contributes to a chaotic mixing mechanism using a low amplitude AC voltage within a micro-channel. Study analysis demonstrates that the optimization of the effective parameters such as geometrical features, voltage amplitude, fluid inlet velocity, AC frequency and phase lag for a defined fluid can lead to an optimum and highly efficient mixer by considerably increasing disturbances in a primary highly ordered laminar flow. Three different geometries of micro mixer are studied; one-ring... 

This study aims to investigate the micromixing performance of three basic types of spatial shaped micromixers. New configurations of T, Y, and oriented Y-spatial mixers were designed with change in the angles of the confluence and the outlet channel to achieve the efficient micromixing. These micromixers offer advantages that are not attainable with the typical types of these mixers. Experimental tests were carried out in the laminar flow regime and the mixing efficiency was evaluated using Villermaux/Dushman test reaction. The geometries of the channels were cylindrical with the length of 30 mm and the diameter of 800 μm. The experimental results show that the angle of outlet channel has a... 

Centrifugal microfluidics or the Lab on a CD (LOCD) has developed vast applications in biomedical researches and analyses. Fluid mixing is an application of the LOCD. In this paper, multiple centrifugal micromixers were simulated. Various parameters were originally presumed to have an effect on mixing performance. These parameters include inlet angle, angular velocity, cross-sectional profile, perpendicular length ratio and the number of channels in series. They were each analyzed through simulations. It was gathered that the inlet angle does not significantly affect the mixing quality. Increasing angular velocity steadily increases mixing quality for all geometries. The vertical triangular... 

Both nonlinear rheology and finite EDL thickness effects on the mixing process in an electroosmotically actuated Y-sensor are being investigated in this paper, utilizing a depthwise averaging method based on the Taylor dispersion theory. The fluid rheological behavior is assumed to obey the power-law viscosity model. Analytical solutions are obtained assuming a large channel width to depth ratio for which a 1-D profile can efficiently describe the velocity distribution. Full numerical simulations are also performed to determine the applicability range of the analytical model, revealing that it is able to provide accurate results for channel aspect ratios of ten and higher and quite... 

The mixer geometry has substantial effect on mixing performance of different micro/nanomixers. Despite past numerous studies dedicated to mixing of liquid flow streams, there are less efforts to investigate the geometry effects on gas mixing performances. In this work, we focus on gas-gas mixing through different micro/nanoscale mixers under slip and transitional flow regimes. We use the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method to provide accurate and reliable results in such flow regimes. To extend our study, we implement different geometrical parameters in our consideration including the mixer size, the impact angle between two incoming gas streams, and the contraction height located in... 

The electrokinetic phenomena at high zeta potentials may show several unique features which are not normally observed. One of these features is the ionic size (steric) effect associated with the solutions of high ionic concentration. In the present work, attention is given to the influences of finite ionic size on the cross stream diffusion process in an electrokinetically actuated Y-shaped micromixer. The method consists of a finite difference based numerical approach for non-uniform grid which is applied to the dimensionless form of the governing equations, including the modified Poisson-Boltzmann equation. The results reveal that, neglecting the ionic size at high zeta potentials gives... 

In this work, we study the gas mixing behavior in a micro T-mixer using the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. The gas mixing process is monitored through a T-mixer, which is fed by two different CO and N2 gases; flowing into the T-mixer through the upper and lower inlets. We investigate the effects of axial and lateral wall temperature gradients on the mixing evolution at different rarefaction levels. The achieved results show that any temperature difference between the channel walls would result in an increase in mixing length for the chosen wall temperature gradient ranges and the studies pressure cases. Our observations show that a positive temperature gradient toward the... 

A new low-power current reuse topology is proposed for the GPS receiver's RF front-end that combines the higher conversion gain and suppressed noise figure characteristics of cascade structures with the low power consumption of stacked architectures. The presented circuit, called 1.5-stage LMV cell, consists of LNA, Mixer and VCO (LMV) in such a formation that boosts LNA gain and suppresses mixer's noise figure by cascading the two stages while reusing their currents in the two stacked quadrature VCOs and placing the mixer's upper tree switches at the vicinity of on-off regions. The circuit is designed and its layout is generated in TSMC 0.18μm CMOS technology. Post-layout simulations using... 

In this paper a self-oscillating mixer is presented fundamental signal generated by the oscillator subcircuit in the mixing process. The oscillator core consumes 3mA of current from a 1.8 V DC supply and results in an output power of -0.867 dBm per oscillator, and a measured phase noise of -91, -102 and -108 dBc/Hz at 100 KHz, 600 KHz and 1 MHz from the carrier, respectively. In the mixing process the proposed mixer achieved IIP3 of 0 dBm with conversation gain of 1.93 dB. The circuit was designed and simulated in 0.18-μm CMOS technology by ADS2010  

Generally speaking, most micro-fluidic mixing systems are limited to the low Reynolds number regime in which diffusion dominates convection, and consequently the mixing process tends to be slow and it takes a relatively long time to have two fluids completely mixed. Therefore, rapid mixing is essential in micro-fluidic systems. In order to hasten the mixing process in micro scale, in this study we come up with a novel scheme for a two dimensional micro-fluidic mixer which encompasses three pairs of electrodes, one pair embedded in the mixing chamber and two pairs located in the micro-channels before and after the mixing chamber. The width of the middle pair is assumed to be twice of the... 

In this paper, a new formulation based on conversion matrix method is proposed to analyze near-the-carrier local ocillator (LO) noise down conversion to IF in microwave mixers. This method could be easily applied to analyze LO noise down conversion in any type of mixer. Practical results of this method have been compared with the envelope method and measurement results. It is shown that despite the conventional AM noise suppression in balanced mixers, the near-the-carrier LO noise suppression does not occur necessarily at the center frequency of hybrid in balanced mixers. AM noise suppression values are predicted precisely. © 2006 IEEE  

A terahertz modulator based on the Type-II superconductor flux flow oscillator has been proposed. Analytical calculations are presented and the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic parameters such as disorder strength of crystal, penetration depth, frequency, and amplitude of the modulated current on the radiation power spectrum have been studied. The proposed structure also exhibits a mixer-like behavior, in the sense that its output harmonics range from the washboard frequency up to the superconductor gap frequency, so the input signal is practically mixed with the washboard frequency and its harmonics. The modulation index for each harmonic of this modulator has also been investigated. This... 

A compact low power circuit for implementation of a direct conversion OQPSK modulator is proposed. The circuit consists of a digital to analog converter, a low pass filter and an up-converter mixer. By embedding these three blocks, the circuit performance is enhanced and the total power consumption is reduced. The mixer is designed base on a Gilbert cell with on chip inductor loads. Instead of transconductance transistors of Gilbert cell, a fully deferential current mode DAC is used and proficiently a low pass filter is embedded between them and therefore the linearity of total system is improved. All of circuits are designed based on 0.18 μm CMOS technology with a single 1.8 volt power... 

The smoothed particle hydrodynamics method is used to explore the effects of design parameters on the mixing efficiency of two types of active micromixer. First, the complex flow field and the mixing process of two separated fluids in a square mixing chamber with nine symmetric microstirrers are simulated. The influence of design parameters, such as the microstirrer rotation arrangement and the angular velocity of the microstirrer, on the mixing performance, is investigated. The mixing index parameter on ten control points is calculated and the average mixing index is compared for different cases. Simulations illustrate that the rotation arrangement of microstirrers is a key parameter in the... 

A new ultra wideband (UWB) pulse generator covering a-10 dB bandwidth of 2.4-4.6 GHz with a tunable center frequency of 5-5.6 GHz to mitigate coexistence issues of impulse radio UWB (IR-UWB) systems and IEEE802.11.a WLAN or other narrowband (NB) systems in 90 nm-CMOS technology is proposed. The UWB pulse is generated based on frequency up-conversion of the first derivative of the Gaussian pulse, which creates an adjustable null in the frequency spectrum. Simulation results show that employing the proposed pulse generator mitigates the mutual interference between UWB and WLAN systems, significantly. The proposed transmitter consists of a low frequency signal generator, an LC oscillator and a... 

The Lab On a CD (LOCD), also known as Centrifugal Microfluidics, has evolved into a sophisticated platform for performing biomedical assays due to its marvelous miniaturization and accurate simulation of biological reactions. Among the numerous applications of the LOCD is fluid mixing. In this paper a centrifugal, serpentine micromixer is simulated and reformed toward better mixing performance. The micromixer was chosen to be curved as a curved design was found to be thrice as functional and compact as a rectilinear design, mixing-wise. The two angular velocity and opening radius parameters were originally hypothesized to affect mixing performance. Effect of angular velocity was studied over... 

Recent advances in the field of microfabrication have made the application of high-throughput microfluidics feasible. Mixing which is an essential part of any miniaturized standalone system remains the key challenge. This paper proposes a geometrically simple micromixer for efficient mixing for high-throughput microfluidic devices. The proposed micromixer utilizes a curved microchannel (spiral microchannel) to induce chaotic advection and enhance the mixing process. It is shown that the spiral microchannel is more efficient in comparison to a straight microchannel, mixing wise. The pressure drop in the spiral microchannel is only slightly higher than that in the straight microchannel. It is...