1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a compact fluid system, and more particularly, to a micro pump adoptable to a compact fluid system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The recent rapid progress of micro machining techniques enables the development of a Micro-Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) having various functions. Such an MEMS is widely used in the fields of genetic engineering, medical diagnoses, drug discovery, and the like. In particular, the performance of all necessary processes including chemical reaction and analysis on a chip, a so-called Lab On a Chip (LOC), is introduced. Thus, an MEMS is more actively studied.
A fluid such as a sample, a reagent, or the like, must flow in units of micro-liters to drive such a chip or a compact fluid system. Thus, a drive source is required to flow such a fluid. A micro pump is one such example of a drive source.
The micro pump may be a bubble pump, a membrane pump, a rotary pump, or the like. The bubble pump heats a chamber to generate bubbles in a fluid filling the chamber and flows the fluid using a pressure of the bubbles. The membrane pump contracts and compresses the chamber using an electrostatic force to flow the working fluid. The rotary pump rotates a rotator, having a plurality of blades on a circumferential surface thereof, to flow a fluid in and out therefrom.
However, each of the above described drive sources have certain disadvantages associated therewith. For example, a bubble pump has a complicated structure and requires a long time to heat a drive fluid for flowing a working fluid. The membrane pump also has a complicated structure and consumes a large amount of energy to generate the electrostatic force. The rotary pump has a complicated structure and a low reliability, and is easily not assembled. It is therefore difficult for the bubble, membrane, and rotary pumps to control a minute flow amount of a working fluid.