Patent ID: 11857968
Assignee: BIO-RAD LABORATORIES, INC.
Field: Chemical engineering (Chemistry)
Classification: CPC B  C  Y | IPC B  C

Claim 15:
16. A method of altering a spacing of a stream of objects, the method comprising:
transporting the objects of the object stream in carrier fluid along a microfluidic channel structure having an inflow region, an outflow region, and an expanded region extending from the inflow region to the outflow region, wherein the expanded region has a greater cross-sectional area for fluid flow than each of the inflow region and the outflow region;
moving objects of the object stream from the inflow region to the expanded region such that at least a subset of such objects are moved closer to one another in the expanded region than in the inflow and outflow regions; and
passing objects of the object stream from the expanded region to the outflow region to increase a distance between such objects in the outflow region;
wherein the objects are selected from the group consisting of beads, droplets, and biological cells, further comprising forming partitions from a stream including the carrier fluid and carrying a plurality of the objects at a position of the channel structure downstream of the outflow region.