Optofluidic Microsystems for Chemical and Biological Analysis

Abstract

Optofluidics - the synergistic integration of photonics and microfluidics - has recently emerged as a new analytical field that provides a number of unique characteristics for enhanced sensing performance and simplification of microsystems. In this review, we describe various optofluidic architectures developed in the past five years, emphasize the mechanisms by which optofluidics enhances bio/chemical analysis capabilities, including sensing and the precise control of biological micro/nanoparticles, and envision new research directions to which optofluidics leads.

Fig. 1. Various optofluidic devices used in RI detection

a, Metallic nanohole array based plasmonic sensor (Reprinted with permission from American Chemical Society. Copyright 2008). b, Dielectric planar PC sensor (Reprinted with permission from Optical Society of America. Copyright 2007). c, PCF based sensor (Reprinted with permission from Optical Society of America. Copyright 2006). d, Capillary based OFRR sensor. e, ARROW based OFRR (Reprinted with permission from American Institute of Physics. Copyright 2010) f, FP interferometric sensor for cell detection (Reprinted with permission from American Institute of Physics. Copyright 2007). g, Flow-through vs. flow-over plasmonic sensor and the corresponding sensing response (Reprinted with permission from American Chemical Society. Copyright 2009). h, FP sensor with flow-through micro/nanofluidic channels (Reprinted with permission from American Institute of Physics. Copyright 2011).

Fig. 2. Optofluidic SERS techniques

a, Electrokinetic concentration of analyte molecules at the SERS-active surface in a microchannel (Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry). b, Size-selective detection of protein aggregates using a nanofluidic channel (Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry).

Fig. 3. Various optofluidic devices for nanoparticle trapping and manipulation

a, Particle trapping and fluorescence analysis using a liquid core ARROW waveguide structure (Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry). b, Optoelectronic tweezers for the parallel control of cells in a microfluidic channel (Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature copyright 2005).