Self-coalescence occurs when a liquid is stretched and made to fold onto itself. Using microfluidics, their unique properties can be used to engineer and deliver precise sequences of reagents to realize complex portable bioassays.

“Self-coalescence” of a liquid in a microstructure containing reagents can be programmed to master the dissolution profiles of picogram quantities of reagents in nanoliter volumes of solutions. This brings new options for chemistry and biosensing at the microscale.