Life Science – Medical / Microfluidic Application note Droplet based microfluidics With the Opto digital inverse microscope profile M Fig. 1: The Opto Imaging Module profile M is a pure digital inverted microscope perfectly designed for microfluidic experiment Droplet-based or digital microfluidics is a screening method used in various applications in practice. It creates serial sequences of droplets that are considered as self-contained reaction vessels. Spatially separated biological or chemical reactions or kinetics are done in these reaction vessels. Due to the very small reaction spaces in the picoliter range, the reactions run much faster compared to conventional procedures. This ends in reagent savings and significant time reduction, as well as the ability to highly automate screening experiments. Applications range from fast analytical systems, synthesis of materials to biological assays with living cells. The principle behind droplet generation is based on the immiscibility of two liquids. During the transition of the two liquids, a phase boundary is formed, resulting in the formation of droplets. The reaction process is usually fast. For this purpose, optical detection methods are used for the recognition and evaluation of these processes. Challenging for the integration of microfluidic chip devices are the limited available packaging space. Therefore, inverted microscopes with long working distances are preferred for these applications. www.opto-gmbh.com Opto GmbH • Floriansbogen 2/4 • 82061 Neuried • Germany • Tel: +49 89 8980 55 0 • info@o

In order to follow chemical or biological reaction kinetics, it is necessary to resolve the reactions in temporal and spatial resolution. Multifluorescence digital microscopes, high speed image acquisition modules and easy cloud computing functionality integrated in an ultra-compact form factor is needed to realize a high throughput analysis. This is what the Opto Imaging Modules are designed for. The need for more point of care testing and high throughput screening solutions makes image-based cell analysis and lab on a chip approach more and more attractive. To integrate microscopy in compact...

The encapsulation of cells or particles is common technique in droplet-based microfluidics to create defined reaction conditions. A high spatial and spectral resolution is necessary to detect optical and spectral shifts inside the droplets. The concentration of analytes and cells as well as the size of the droplets depends on the selected flow parameters and channel geometry. To adjust the speed, size of the droplets and to control the creation of the droplets, upright or transmitted light microscopes are used. Depending on the size of the droplets and particles inside the droplet as well as...

Our fluorescence imaging modules allow to automate new microfluidic applications that have to find their way out of stand-alone R&D setups into point-of-care devices. Applications like copy number variation (CNV), rare sequence detection, gene expression, single-cell analysis and pathogen detection are applications that need newest imaging technologies. Multifluorescence digital microscopes, High speed Image acquisition and easy cloud computing functionality integrated in an ultracompact form factor is needed to realize a high throughput analysis. This is what the Opto Imaging Modules are designed...