Continuous Particle Separation Through Deterministic Lateral Displacement

We report on a microfluidic particle-separation device that makes use of the asymmetric bifurcation of laminar flow around obstacles. A particle chooses its path deterministically on the basis of its size. All particles of a given size follow equivalent migration paths, leading to high resolution. The microspheres of 0.8, 0.9, and 1.0 micrometers that were used to characterize the device were sorted in 40seconds with a resolution of ∼10nanometers, which was better than the time and resolution of conventional flow techniques. Bacterial artificial chromosomes could be separated in 10 minutes with a resolution of ∼12%.