Micro-LIF measurement of microchannel flow

Measurement of concentration distributions of suspended particles in a micro-channel is out of the most crucial necessities in the area of Lab-on-a-chip to be used for various bio-chemical applications. One most feasible way to measure the concentration field in the micro-channel is using micro-LIF(Laser Induced Fluorescence) method. However, an accurate concentration field at a given cross plane in a micro-channel has not been successfully achieved so far due to various limitations in the light illumination and fluorescence signal detection. The present study demonstrates a novel method to provide an ultra thin laser sheet beam having five(5) microns thickness by use of a micro focus laser line generator. The laser sheet beam illuminates an exact plane of concentration measurement field to increase the signal to noise ratio and considerably reduce the depth uncertainty. Nile Blue A was used as fluorescent dye for the present LIF measurement. The enhancement of the fluorescent intensity signals was performed by a solvent mixture of water $(95\%)$ and ethanol (EtOH)/methanol (MeOH) $(5\%)$ mixture. To reduce the rms errors resulted from the CCD electronic noise and other sources, an expansion of grid size was attempted from $1\times1\;to\;3\times3\;or\;5\times5$ pixel data windows and the pertinent signal-to-noise level has been noticeably increased accordingly.