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The emerging field of optofluidics provides exciting opportunities for the realization of tunable optofluidic devices (TODs) using a large variety of physical mechanisms. This is because microfluidics is a promising technology for achieving a high degree of tunability-a capability that is not available in many of the current optical devices. In addition, microfluidics holds a great potential for rapid prototyping, miniaturization and integration. TODs already find commercial applications in various fields such as display and imaging, and are expected to become a key player in future optical systems for biology, medicine, communication and information processing. We review the recent progress in the field and discuss potential future directions.

We demonstrate a tunable on chip polymer waveguide micro ring resonator (MRR) device. The transmission spectrum and extinction ratio are controlled by electrowetting on dielectric (EWOD), via the application of voltage to a droplet. As a result the droplet covers a portion of the MRR waveguide and changes its effective refractive index. This method can be used for efficiently tuning a variety of on chip optical devices, as it offers high index contrast, electrical control and low power consumption.

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