Enhanced Design of OptoFluidic Microscopy

This paper presents an enhanced design of opto-fluidic microscopy (OFM) with significant improvement. OFM is a novel optical imaging device that can be directly integrated into a microfluidic network, and can therefore enable high resolution and on-chip imaging of biological samples that are flowing in microfluidic channels. The main advantages of OFM are its very compact miniaturized design, low cost, high throughput, and its non destructive nature of optical probing. But the key advantage of this optical imaging device is its ability to capture high resolution (750 nm) images although it is free from any bulk optics (lenses). Instead of bulk optics, OFM is based on a nanohole array defined in an opaque metallic layer that is patterned onto the floor of the microfluidic channel and then mounted on top of a one dimensional CCD or photodiode array.