Strong intrinsic mixing in vortex magnetic fields

We report a method of magnetic mixing wherein a “vortex” magnetic field applied to a suspension of magnetic particles creates strong homogeneous mixing throughout the fluid volume. Experiments designed to elucidate the microscopic mechanism of mixing show that the torque is quadratic in the field, decreases with field frequency, and is optimized at a vortex field angle of ∼55°. Theory and simulations indicate that the field-induced formation of volatile particle chains is responsible for these phenomena. This technique has applications in microfluidic devices and is ideally suited to applications such as accelerating the binding of target biomolecules to biofunctionalized magnetic microbeads.