Raúl Fernández-Mateo

School of Electronics and Computer Science

Raúl is currently a member of the Research Staff at the Digital Health and Biomedical Engineering (DHBE) group of the University of Southampton. He is a BSc in Physics from the University of Seville, and holds a PhD in Physics awarded by the University of Southampton (UK).

Teaching

His teaching at the University of Southampton consists in delivering lab demonstrations to undergraduate students coursing Biomedical Engineering (BEng). Specifically, he is part of the Semiconductor Devices, Materials and Sensors module of the degree. In the demonstrations, the students are introduced to the electrochemical and semiconductor sensors for measuring properties of electrolytes such as pH.

Research

The research interests of Raúl are in the field of microfluidics and electrokinetics for efficient micron and sub-micron scale particle isolation from colloidal suspensions. The aim of his research is to deliver new technologies for the isolation and enrichment of specific body fluid components for improved diagnostics. His research activities cover from the modelling of the fundamental aspects of fluid motion generated in AC electrokinetics, to the design and fabrication of microfluidic platforms for proof of principle operation, and translation of the technology to the operation with biological samples.

The major contribution of his recent research has been the theoretical and numerical modelling of novel observations of fluid flows around dielectric microstructures in microfluidic channels in the presence of low-frequency AC electric fields. This investigation resulted in a new electrokinetic theory which he and his co-workers termed Concentration-Polarization Electroosmosis, or CPEO.

In the last three years, he has published more than 10 high-impact research articles in international peer-reviewed journals, and participated in more than 5 international conference on the fundamentals and applications of electrokinetics in microfluidics. During this time, he has also participated in a large European consortium whose aim was to deliver a platform for the standardized isolation of Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) from clinical samples.

Numerical Simulation and COMSOL Multiphysics

The research activities of Raúl involve extensive use of COMSOL Multiphysics as a bridging tool between the analytical modelling and experimental analysis. For this reason, in most of his publications there are described numerical methods for solving the physical problem, whose solutions are found using different modules of the COMSOL Multiphysics Software.

The numerical analysis involved in his research is of interdisciplinary nature, with highly coupled models using electrohydrodynamics and heat thermal transfer in two- and three-dimensional domains.