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xiv Series Editors Preface

now, the necessary combination of the different areas of knowledge was theprerogative of the relatively small number of pioneers in the field, but as itnow enters the mainstream, it is very necessary for a much larger community

of practising engineers, scientists and technologists to become acquainted withareas of knowledge that, in the crowded curricula of modern university physicsand engineering undergraduate courses, are practically relegated to footnotes.

This book is unique in combining in one volume all the knowledge necessaryfor launching into cutting-edge research and development in the field of digitalmicrofluidics. Formerly esoteric subjects such as the physics of droplets andelectrowetting, and the relevant parts of acoustics, are thoroughly treated, sothat the reader will have an excellent grounding in the fundamental theoryunderpinning the technology. At the same time, applications are never farfrom the mind of the author, who is himself an active practitioner in the

field, and enrich the entire book, not only the chapters specifically devotedto applications in, for example, biomedicine and chemistry. Several chaptersbenefit from collaboration with distinguished experts in those topics.

This is a book that will lead the reader from some possibly hazy recollectionsof the classical results of scientists such as Laplace and Young, right up tothe rapidly increasing and astonishingly imaginative current developments inmicrodroplets and digital microfluidics.

Jeremy Ramsden

Cranfield University, United KingdomDecember 2007