Fig. 1: Working principle of the NOVAsort droplet sorter that uses a planar-IDE-generated DEP force and droplet buoyancy for simultaneous size- and fluorescence-based droplet sorting.

A Typical polydisperse droplet library after multiple incubation and/or manipulation steps, which flows into the droplet sorter. B Overview of the NOVAsort droplet sorting workflow. C Top view of the droplet manipulation region illustrates that larger droplets will be affected by the DEP force and follow the trajectory of the IDE patterns while the smaller droplets will continue to flow uninterrupted to the waste outlet. D A cross-sectional view of the IDE region illustrates that a large droplet is closer to the IDE surface and thus experiences a much stronger DEP force (F₁), while a small droplet that is buoyant and further away from the IDE surface experiences a much weaker DEP force (F₂). Here \({{{{\bf{E}}}}}^{ \rightharpoonup }\) stands for electrical field, and D₁/D₂ stands for the distance between the IDEs and droplets. Figure 1/panels (A–D), created with BioRender.com, released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International license.