Signal intensity enhancement of μ-LIF by using ultra-thin laser sheet illumination and aqueous mixture with ethanol/methanol for micro-channel applications

Measurement of concentration distributions of suspended particles in a micro-channel is one 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 μ-LIF (micro-scale 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 5 μm thickness using 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 resulting from the CCD electronic noise and other sources, an expansion of grid size was attempted from 1×1 to 3×3 or 5×5 pixel data windows and the pertinent signal-to-noise level has been noticeably increased accordingly.