*Article* **Mixing Mechanism of Microfluidic Mixer with Staggered Virtual Electrode Based on Light-Actuated AC Electroosmosis**

**Liuyong Shi <sup>1</sup> , Hanghang Ding <sup>1</sup> , Xiangtao Zhong <sup>1</sup> , Binfeng Yin <sup>2</sup> , Zhenyu Liu <sup>3</sup> and Teng Zhou 1,\***


**Abstract:** In this paper, we present a novel microfluidic mixer with staggered virtual electrode based on light-actuated AC electroosmosis (LACE). We solve the coupled system of the flow field described by Navier–Stokes equations, the described electric field by a Laplace equation, and the concentration field described by a convection–diffusion equation via a finite-element method (FEM). Moreover, we study the distribution of the flow, electric, and concentration fields in the microchannel, and reveal the generating mechanism of the rotating vortex on the cross-section of the microchannel and the mixing mechanism of the fluid sample. We also explore the influence of several key geometric parameters such as the length, width, and spacing of the virtual electrode, and the height of the microchannel on mixing performance; the relatively optimal mixer structure is thus obtained. The current micromixer provides a favorable fluid-mixing method based on an optical virtual electrode, and could promote the comprehensive integration of functions in modern microfluidic-analysis systems.

**Keywords:** light-actuated AC electroosmosis (LACE); microfluidic mixer; optical virtual electrode; electrokinetics; computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
