Noninvasive fluid flow measurements in microfluidic channels with backscatter interferometry.

The ability to measure fluid velocity within picoliter volumes or on-chip noninvasively, is important toward fully realizing the potential of microfluidics and micrototal analysis systems, particularly in applications such as micro-high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) or in metering mixing where the flow rate must be quantified. Additionally, these measurements need to be performed directly on moving fluids in a noninvasive fashion. We presented here the proof of principle experiments showing nonintrusive fluid flow measurements can be accomplished on-chip using a pump and probe configuration with backscattering interferometry. The on-chip interferometric backscatter detector (OCIBD) is based on a fiber-coupled HeNe laser that illuminates a portion of an isotropically etched 40 microm radius channel and a position sensitive transducer to measure fringe pattern shifts. An infrared laser with a mechanical shutter is used to heat a section of a flowing volume and the resulting refractive index (RI) change is detected with the OCIBD downstream as a time-dependent RI perturbation. Fluid velocity is quantified as changes in the phase difference between the shutter signal and the OCIBD detected signal in the Fourier domain. The experiments are performed in the range of 3-6 microL/h with 3sigma detection limits determined to be 0.127 nL/s. Additionally, the RI response of the system is calibrated using temperature changes as well as glycerol solutions.