Optofluidic components for biomedical applications

Abstract

In the last years the term Optofluidics has popped up in a large amount of scientific publications. The goal of this thesis is to prove Optofluidics as an applicable, powerful tool for distinct biological and medical applications. In the main part of this work, an optofluidic sensing unit for the determination of liquid concentration is presented. In an experimental evaluation, the sensor was tested with different dissolved molecules including phosphate and lactose. Depending on the analyte, a smallest detectable change in concentration of 10 to 40mmol/L was determined. Besides the sensing device, a new subfield of optofluidics was introduced for the very first time. Thermo-optofluidics deals with the integration of thermal elements in optofluidic systems. Compared to solely solid based realizations more than twice the theoretical switching frequency can be achieved. In conclusion, the applicability of optofluidics for different sensor as well as actuator systems was experimentally proven. All the devices were fabricated applying low-cost, rapid-prototyping fabrication techniques which allow the realization of cost-effective hand-held devices.