Figure 2

(a) Suspension flowrate decays over time at different \(\phi\) for \(\Delta P = 1000\) mbar. Even at high \(\phi\), the devices never fully clog due to continued filtration of the suspension medium through the clogs. Three specific processes are present in each decay curve. They correspond to the initial and final plateau, and the power-law decay between them. (b) Evolution of the normalized fluorescence intensity (\(I/I_m\)) around the midpoint of the channels exit region for \(\Delta P\) = 1000 mbar. \(I/I_m\) increases as particles begin to sieve into the channels where \(w_c \approx d_p\). The time, t, when \(I/I_m\) significantly increases corresponds to \(\tau _d\), which denotes the end of the initial plateau in the flowrate decay curves. Inset: \(\tau _d\) depends on \(\phi\) with a power-law exponent of \(-\frac{1}{4}\). \(\tau _d\) of the least concentrated cases (\(\phi = 0.005\%\) and \(0.01\%\)) is approximately equal to \(\tau _v\). The dip in \(I/I_m\) at longer times is due to photo-bleaching arising from prolonged exposure to the excitation light source.