Development and fluidic simulation of microneedles for painless pathological interfacing with living systems

In this paper, we investigate the development and fluidic analysis of microneedles integrated with painless blood extraction systems that aim to mimic the female mosquito's blood sampling techniques in certain respects. The microneedles are fabricated by employing the sputtering deposition method. A fluid mechanical analysis is presented toward predicting the transport mechanisms inside the microneedle as dynamically evolving consequences of the resistive forces and the aiding surface tension influences. The theoretical predictions are comprehensively compared to experimental data, and excellent agreements are found for all cases. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.