WSU has a issued patent covering our novel method and device for reversible electrowetting on teflon-coated graphene electrodes.
US patent 9,630,183 issued 5/25/2017
“Electrowetting on dielectric using graphene”
Graphene devices exhibit superior performance including flexibility, transparency and higher breakdown voltage. Dr. Cheng has developed prototype electrowetting devices using graphene electrodes to manipulate droplets in microfluidic chips and created a micro-lens with tunable magnification. These lenses have applications in miniaturized optics for cameras such as deployable field microscopes for cell imaging/diagnostic, as well as biocompatible tunable lenses for 3D image reconstruction in human ocular lens. A compound lens design can provide true optical zoom for enhanced depth of field. Several other applications using EWOD graphene devices have also been tested.
Applications:
* 'Lab-on-a-chip' devices
* Liquid tunable micro lens
* Bioinspired compound eyes
* Three-dimensional (3D) displays
* Precise droplet manipulation
References:
Electrowetting on dielectric experiments, using graphene, Nanotechnology, 23 (2012) 375501 (8pp)
Versatile Miniature Tunable Liquid Lenses Using Transparent Graphene Electrodes, Langmuir, 32(6), (2016), pp 1658–1665
Toward individually tunable compound eyes with transparent graphene electrode, Bioinspiration& Biomimetics , 12(4), (2017), pp 046002