Toward the commercialization of optofluidics

Abstract

Optofluidics is a marriage between the field of optics and microfluidics. This field aims at providing practical solutions with the integration of optical tools into lab-on-chip systems. Often, this results in opportunities for commercialization due to the advancement offered after the integration. Although numerous novel functions and properties have been demonstrated with the combination of optics and microfluidics, the market has witnessed only few transferals of optofluidic technologies from academic laboratories. This stemmed from a lack of a "killer applications" despite several decades of development. Therefore it is necessary to have a retrospective review on this topic, particularly on the basic optofluidic components, to analyze what might be the hurdles to stop the market uptake of optofluidic devices. Specifically, this review paper is focused on discussion of optofluidic components in terms of fabrication standardization, device & operational cost and practicability for end-users. It is believed that these factors play important roles in the market uptake of a novel technology. We then provide perspectives on how to align the development of optofluidics with the requirements imposed by the industry.

High-throughput, non-equilibrium studies of single biomolecules using glass-made nanofluidic devices

“…diffusion of a species Pe < 10 from one inlet upstream into the other inlet) has been predicted for this geometry but had never been experimentally observed. 29,30 The presence of axial diffusion is confirmed in our experiments.…”

A Critical Review on the Sensing, Control, and Manipulation of Single Molecules on Optofluidic Devices

“…The interaction of light and fluids has opened up avenues for a breadth of optofluidic applications including but not limited to bio-imaging [108], adaptive optical lenses [111,112], optofluidic microscopy [113], lasers [114], biological and chemical sensing [104,115,116], energy harvesting [117], and particle manipulation [110,118]. Figure 2a shows a year-wise publication in the field of optofluidics with a monotonic increment every year [119]. Nonetheless, as optofluidics deals with both light and liquid at small scales, it is imperative to devise a methodology to confine and guide light through the desired part of the fluidic section.…”

Determination of the Highly Sensitive Carboxyl-Graphene Oxide-Based Planar Optical Waveguide Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance Biosensor

“…This leads to a change in the light signal or wavelength shift. Quantification, real-time detection, or binding kinetics of the molecular estimation of the target object or analyte can be performed by measuring the subtle optical signal change of RI [4]. Previous studies have published multiple optical waveguide sensors, such as guided-mode resonance [5][6][7], the Mach-Zehnder interferometer [8][9][10], and the fiber grating [11][12][13].…”