Characterization of a new system for space-resolved simultaneous in situ measurements of hydrocarbons and dissolved oxygen in microchannels

A space-resolved in situ measurement technique based on laser Raman spectroscopy with high detection sensitivity is described. This method allows the simultaneous detection of the concentrations of dissolved molecular oxygen and of hydrocarbons as well as oxidation products in organic liquids in a microchannel during reaction. It can be used as a new tool for detailed kinetic studies of liquid-phase reaction. Raman spectra are produced using an argon ion laser at 488 nm with a continuous optical power of 100 mW. This radiation is coupled into a microscope and a microchannel. The arising Raman stray light is detected with a spectrometer and a sensitive CCD camera. Special optics were used to collect as much light as possible on the CCD detector. This results in high signals and low noise levels. In order to demonstrate the usefulness of the system, cyclohexane oxidation by oxygen was investigated. In a feasibility study for the products of the cyclohexane oxidation, a limit of detection of 0.05 % m/m for cyclohexanol and 0.01 % m/m for cyclohexanone was achieved. Molecular oxygen dissolved in cyclohexane could be detected at the relevant concentration ranges for carrying out the oxidation of cyclohexane with a limit of detection of 0.01 % m/m. An optically transparent microchannel reactor was built, which can be used up to temperatures of 503 K and pressures of 8 MPa. With this reactor and the in situ measurement technique, space-resolved studies with a measuring volume of 5 μm × 5 μm × 38 μm can now be realized. The spectral selectivity and sensitivity of the measurement technique applied to cyclohexane oxidation, and the characteristics of the spatially resolved measurement technique are discussed.     

Design and characterization of precise laser-based autofocusing microscope with reduced geometrical fluctuations

Due to consumer preference for products with ever higher performance, a requirement exists for precise autofocusing microscope systems to perform the inspection process in automated mass production lines. Accordingly, the present study proposes a laser-based microscope system in which a precise autofocusing capability is achieved using a position feedback signal based on the distance L between the geometrical center (X _c , Y _c ) of the image captured by the CCD sensor and the centroid (x _centroid , y _centroid ) of the image. The experimental results show that the proposed system has a positioning accuracy of 2.2 μm and a response time of 1 s given a working range of ±200 μm. The autofocusing performance of the proposed system is thus better than that of a conventional centroid-based system, which typically achieves a positioning accuracy of around 5.2 μm.     

Development of a new meso-scale machine tool for fabricating micro V-grooves

This work presents the development of a meso-scale machine tool with a nanometer resolution. The newly developed meso-scale machine tool consists of a pagoda structure for Z-axis, four HR8 ultrasonic motors, three linear encoders with a resolution of 2 nm, a coaxial counter-balance system, a XY coplanar positioning stage, a rotary stage, a Galil 4-axis motion control card, an industrial PC and a CCD camera system. The optimal geometrical dimensions of the pagoda structure have been determined by ANSYS software. The designed meso-scale machine tool is equipped with an X–Y coplanar positioning stage with nanometer resolution. The coplanar stage developed by National Taiwan University was integrated with two linear encoders, so that a two-axis closed-loop control was possible. A circular positioning test with the radius of 1 mm using the developed stage was tested, and the overall circular positioning error was about 83 nm based on the test results. The micro V-grooves and the micro pyramid cutting tests of the polished oxygen free copper using a single crystal diamond tool on the developed meso-scale machine tool have been performed. The cutting tests under various combination of the depth of cut and cutting speed have been carried out. It revealed that the cutting speed had no great influence on the cutting force. The measured cutting forces for the depth of cut of 5, 10, 15 μm were 1.2, 1.6 and 2.4 N, respectively. The results showed the meso-scale machining tool can be used in micro pyramid structures manufacturing.     

A facile strategy to integrate robust porous aluminum foil into microfluidic chip for sorting particles

High efficiency integration of functional microdevices into microchips is crucial for broad microfluidic applications. Here, a device-insertion and pressure sealing method was proposed to integrate robust porous aluminum foil into a microchannel for microchip functionalization which demonstrate the advantage of high efficient foil microfabrication and facile integration into the microfluidic chip. The porous aluminum foil with large area (10 × 10 mm²) was realized by one-step femtosecond laser perforating technique within few minutes and its pores size could be precisely controlled from 3 μm to millimeter scale by adjusting the laser pulse energy and pulse number. To verify the versatility and flexibility of this method, two kinds of different microchips were designed and fabricated. The vertical-sieve 3D microfluidic chip can separate silicon dioxide (SiO₂) microspheres of two different sizes (20 and 5 μm), whereas the complex stacking multilayered structures (sandwich-like) microfluidic chip can be used to sort three different kinds of SiO₂ particles (20, 10 and 5 μm) with ultrahigh separation efficiency of more than 92%. Furthermore, these robust filters can be reused via cleaning by backflow (mild clogging) or disassembling (heavy clogging).     

RV减速器行星架主要参数在线检测研究

针对行星架轴承安装孔的孔组位置度、平行度、孔径尺寸和圆度公差在线检测,提出一种快速检测的方法来实现多传感器对行星架关键尺寸进行测量。以行星架外圆为定位基准,采用接触式电感传感器对孔组位置度和平行度误差进行检测;根据被测孔径特点,采用非接触气动测量方式实现对行星架轴承安装孔内径和圆度的快速评定的方案,详细分析了各参数的评价方法。通过对研制出的样机与三坐标测量机的测量结果进行实验比对,实现孔组的位置度误差<3μm、孔径及圆度误差<2μm、平行度误差<1μm和整机测量节拍<1 min,结果表明本系统的测量方法和评定算法准确可靠,满足企业在线生产需要。     

热超声倒装键合机的视觉系统定位精度实验研究

简要说明了视觉定位原理及定位实验数据的采集过程,并对倒装键合实验台的视觉定位系统的误差进行了理论分析。以热超声倒装键合实验台为平台,应用HexSight图像处理软件,对实验用1mm×1mm的表面有8个凸点的芯片进行定位实验。根据测得的实验结果,分别对定位系统的平移误差和旋转误差进行了分析。采用对5次识别结果取平均值的优化方法,使角度误差减小到0.023766°,单项误差减小到0.183μm,综合误差减小到0.554μm。试验结果表明,该视觉定位系统达到了热超声倒装键合过程中芯片与基板之间的定位精度的要求。     

Electrochemical determination of glutamic pyruvic transaminase using a microfluidic chip

The activity of glutamic pyruvic transaminase (GPT) is an important clinical evidence for some acute diseases such as acute hepatopathy and myocardial infarction. Thus, there is a demand for rapid determination of GPT in small formats at point-of-need. Herein, we describe a novel method of electrochemical determination of GPT with microfluidic technique. GPT activity was indirectly determined via the electrochemical (EC) detection of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) produced from the GPT transdeamination reaction. A type of microfluidic chip was developed, in which a passive mixer comprising 100 sub-ribs and a three-electrode strip for EC were integrated. To verify the response to NADH, a series of NADH concentrations varying from 19 µM to 5 mM were calibrated with cyclic voltammetry within the microfluidic chip. And a linear relationship with R ² 0.9982 between the peak current and the concentration of NADH was obtained. Then, the GPT activity was determined using the chips containing and not containing a ribs-type mixer. And a linear relationship which contained two sections between the GPT activity and the peak current was obtained. The chip with a ribs-type mixer exhibited the sensitivity of 0.0341 μA U^?1 L in the range of 10–50 U L^?1 and 0.0236 μA U^?1 L in the range of 50–250 U L^?1. And the detection limit of the chip with a ribs-type mixer was 9.25 U L^?1. The complete detection process of GPT activity within the microfluidic chip was realized, and the time-consuming problem was remarkably improved too.     

Development of a nanofluidic preconcentrator with precise sample positioning and multi-channel preconcentration

A nanofluidic preconcentrator with the capability of rapidly preconcentrating and precisely positioning protein bands in multiple microchannels has been developed for highly sensitive detection of biomolecules. A novel electrical resistive network model is developed to guide the design of the nanofluidic preconcentrator which consists of a PDMS slab bonded with a glass slide. In the prototype design, two microchannels (23 mm long, 25–50 μm wide, and 5–15 μm deep), one preconcentration microchannel and one ground microchannel are connected in the middle via 16 nanochannels (25–50 μm long, 25 μm wide, and 50–80 nm deep). With two sets of optimal voltage settings applied on the opposite ends of the nanofluidic chip, the ion depletion region and electrokinetic trapping were generated to carry out the preconcentration. With the optimal voltage settings (30–30 V) predicted by the model, the ionic current of the nanochannel in our optimized preconcentrator was adjusted to be greater than the threshold value (3.9 nA) needed for the occurrence of the preconcentration, and a preconcentration factor >10⁵ was achieved in 5 min. The sample positioning capability of the preconcentrator was demonstrated by adjusting the applied voltages and moving the preconcentrated protein bands to multiple sites by a distance from several micrometers to several millimeters in the preconcentration channel. The multi-channel preconcentration capability was also demonstrated by preconcentrating two protein bands in two separate microchannels. In this work, the resistive network model was developed and validated to optimize nanofluidic preconcentrators for rapid, high throughput and highly sensitive sensing of low abundance analytes.     

Development of reel-to-reel microchip mounting system for fabrication of meter-long LED lighting tapes

We have developed a reel-to-reel microchip mounting system that continuously mounts LED chips and other microchips on meter-long flexible printed circuit board (PCB) tape for 1.2-m-long standard LED light tubes. Mounting microchips on meter-long PCBs is difficult because a large chip mounter is expensive and the chip positioning stage is difficult to move in a meter-wide area with an accuracy of hundreds of micrometers. Hence, we developed a new microchip mounting system that utilizes a small chip mounter and reel winding machines. The system repeatedly moves the long PCB tape by a certain length with the reel winding machines and mounts the chips on it. The PCB tape (which is 5 mm wide) is made by fabricating long PCB tapes which are 25 cm × 26.6 m through a roll-to-roll PCB process and slitting them into meter-long tapes. The reel-to-reel system repeatedly mounts chips by adjusting their positions through image processing of the copper wiring pattern on the PCBs. Our constructed system mounted 24 LED chips with a pitch of 5 cm with an accuracy of 0.082 mm to form a 1.2-m-long LED tape. The luminance of the tape is 12.4 lx at a distance of 1 m, which is the luminance of outdoor corridor lighting. Therefore, this system can be used for meter-long tape lighting.     

An automatic microfluidic sample transfer and introduction system

We report an easily setup, reliable and automatic microfluidic sample transfer and introduction system. Two different function liquid detection modules were developed to separately perform rapidly removing of a large approximate volume of air off chip and a low-speed high precision small volume of air purging process on chip incorporating liquid-on-chip handling module. As a proof of concept, we demonstrated that a small volume of radioactive sample as low as 5 μL could be successfully transferred and introduced from vials to the desired location in the microfluidic chip with minimal loss (2.1 ± 0.4 %, n = 3). The total time of the sample transfer and introduction was less than 1 min. The complete automation would facilitate the safe handling of the dangerous and toxic materials, such as radioactive compound.     

Two-axis micro fluxgate sensor on single chip

We present a two-axis micro fluxgate sensor on single chip for electronic compassing function. To measure X- and Y-axis magnetic fields, functional two fluxgate sensors were perpendicularly aligned and connected each other. The fluxgate sensor was composed of square-ring shaped magnetic core and solenoid excitation and pick-up coils. The solenoid coils and magnetic core were separated by benzocyclobutane which had high insulation and good planarization characters. Copper coil patterns of 10 μm width and 6 μm thickness were electroplated on Ti (300 Å)/Cu (1,500 Å) seed layers. 3 μm thick Ni_0.8Fe_0.2 (permalloy) film for the magnetic core was also electroplated under 2,000 gauss. Excellent linear response over the range of ?100 μT to +100 μT was obtained with the sensitivity of ～280 V/T. Actual chip size was 3.1×3.1 mm². The sine and cosine signals of two-axis fluxgate sensor had a good function of azimuth compass.     

Chemiluminescence detection for Cu (II) based on 1,10-Phenanthroline-hydrogen peroxide reaction on a PDMS microfluidic chip

A simple, rapid and effective method for the determination of copper (II) in water on a PDMS microfluidic chip with chemiluminescence (CL) detection is presented. The CL reaction was based on oxidation of 1,10-phenanthroline by hydrogen peroxide in basic aqueous solution. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was chosen as material for fabricating the microfluidic chip with two steps lithography method. Optimized reagents conditions were found to be 6.0 × 10^?5 mol/L 1,10-phenanthroline, 1.2 × 10^?3 mol/L hydrogen peroxide, 6.5 × 10^?2 mol/L sodium hydroxide and 2.0 × 10^?3 mol/L Hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium Bromide (CTMAB). In the continuous flow injection mode the system can perform fully automated detection with a reagent consumption of only 3.4 μL each time. The linear range of the Cu (II) ions concentration was 1.0 × 10^?8 mol/L to 1.0 × 10^?4 mol/L, and the detection limit was 9.2 × 10^?9 mol/L with the S/N ratio of 3. The relative standard deviation was 2.8 % for 1.0 × 10^?6 mol/L Cu (II) ions (n = 8). The most notable features of the detection method are simple operation, rapid detection and easy fabrication of the microfluidic chip.     

Development of dynamic tilt control method and servo algorithm in gap servo NFR

In the NFR system, since the gap between SIL and disc is under 100 nm, the traditional servo method can not be applied, and its modification is necessary for the stable servo performance. The gap error servo method is well-known as a typical servo in the NFR system (Verschuren et al. in JJAP 44:3554–3558, 2005) for focusing direction, and pull-in procedure (Zijp et al. in IEEE Trans Magn 41(2):1042–1046, 2005) and hand-over (Lee et al. in JJAP 44(5B):3423–3426, 2005) methods are also good approaches for the stable servo in the near field. We can obtain a good servo performance using the gap error servo method, and its experimental result shows that it is consistent with the previous researches. In case of the track servo, 1-beam push pull was generally used for the traditional ODD. However, it contains a DC offset components with lens movement, and thus, we can not have a good RF signal and track error signal simultaneously. Therefore, in this paper we introduce the modified servo method, which uses gap error lens position and the successful servo result for surface disc and 1.7 μm cover layer disc. Test was performed with a 4-axis actuator, and it gives a good performance not only for gap and track servo, but also for radial and tangential tilt. Finally, we suggested the decoupling method between track-shift and tilt components using the gap error differential signal and the simple slit structure. Based on the experimental result, it was verified that slit structure can eliminate the track-shift component effectively.     

Optimized design and fabrication of a microfluidic platform to study single cells and multicellular aggregates in 3D

A microfluidic platform for cell motility analysis in a three-dimensional environment is presented. The microfluidic device is designed to study migration of both single cells and cell spheroids, in particular under spatially and temporally controlled chemical stimuli. A layout based on a central microchannel confined by micropillars and two lateral reservoirs was selected as the most effective. The microfluidics have an internal height of 350 μm to accommodate cell spheroids of a considerable size. The chip is fabricated using well-established micromachining techniques, by obtaining the polydimethylsiloxane replica from a Si/SU-8 master. The chip is then bonded on a 170-μm-thick microscope glass slide to allow high spatial resolution live microscopy. In order to allow the cost-effective and highly repeatable production of chips with high aspect ratio (5:1) micropillars, specific design and fabrication processes were optimized. This design permits spatial confinement of the gel where cells are grown, the creation of a stable gel–liquid interface and the formation of a diffusive gradient of a chemoattractant (>48 h). The chip accomplishes both the tasks of a microfluidic bioreactor system and a cell analysis platform avoiding critical handling of the sample. The experimental fluidic tests confirm the easy handling of the chip and in particular the effectiveness of the micropillars to separate the Matrigel? from the culture media. Experimental tests of (i) the stability of the gradient, (ii) the biocompatibility and (iii) the suitability for microscopy are presented.     

基于线激光扫描的航空发动机叶片非接触式检测研究

以往使用放电探头法和超声法容易受到环境影响,航空发动机叶片叶型尺寸检测不精准,检测耗时较长;为了解决该问题,提出了基于线激光扫描的航空发动机叶片非接触式检测研究;根据航空发动机结构;使用线激光扫描装置,结合CCD相机、分辨率为768×576 pix图像采集卡、23步进伺服马达,对三维空间位置信息的检测,实现坐标系统在X方向上转换;确定光条位置后,构建线激光扫描检测数学模型,确定像坐标系高度值与真实空间高度值之间转换关系,完成叶片叶型尺寸扫描;设计非接触式检测流程,避免受到环境干扰,通过光强峰值反映叶片叶型尺寸;在四坐标检测仪支持下,进行实验验证分析,由实验结果可知,该方法检测到的航空发动机叶片叶型尺寸误差在-0.008~+0.009 mm之间,在允许误差±0.01 m范围内,检测结果精准且检测效率高,能够为航空稳定运行提供技术支持。     

基于激光诱导的细胞荧光成像系统研制

分析了激光诱导荧光法检测钙离子浓度的原理.并利用微流控芯片在细胞培养和检测上的独特优越性,设计实现了基于微流控芯片的测量细胞内钙离子浓度变化的显微荧光成像系统.在对微流控芯片技术研究的基础上设计制作了微流控芯片,并设计了显微系统、快速波长切换系统、CCD成像系统等.利用这套显微荧光成像系统对活体细胞的荧光图像进行采集....     

Microfabrication-free fused silica nanofluidic interface for on chip electrokinetic stacking of DNA

In this article, a simple but robust nanofluidic interface was introduced directly on a chip comprised of commercially available fused silica capillary with ready-made microchannel, and efficient on chip electrokinetic stacking of DNA was successfully demonstrated based on ion concentration polarization (ICP) effect. The nanofluidic interface was established by casting ion exchange polymer resin (Nafion) into a sub-microfracture (~650 nm) prepared on the capillary manually. The width of the fracture was electrically measured with the aide of a mathematic fracture model and confirmed by scanning electronic microscope. Obvious ICP effect was observed both by online microscopic fluorescent imaging and post laser induced fluorescence detection. SYBR Green I labeled dsDNA was stacked at the nanofluidic interface inside the microchannel (cathode side) with a concentration factor of 10³ within 15 s. As high as 800 V was applied through the interface without any damage. The main materials are all commercially available, and no advanced microfabrication facilities are involved in the preparation of the chip.     

Illumination and scattered light detection using a light source consisting of sub-micrometer defect arrays formed on a extremely flat light waveguide core

We have previously argued that an optical sensor combined total analysis system (TAS) is one of the indispensable functional components needed to realize a “ubiquitous human healthcare” system. To achieve this goal, we have proposed a fundamental structure for illuminating a minute cell or particle running along a microfluidic channel using a flat waveguide construction. It is desirable that the TAS light source should be arranged as close to the specimen flow as possible in order to acquire the necessary optical properties; hence, artificial defects formed on the surface of a flat light waveguide are considered to be a promising candidate for realizing the arbitrary-shaped light source for a highly functional optical TAS structure. Based on this idea, we fabricated a structure, constructing a flat and square light source consisting of rectangular solids, sub-micrometer in size, with a 1-μm thick and a 12-μm wide light waveguide core. We successfully trial-manufactured an optical TAS chip with a fluidic channel containing a 14 × 10-μm cross section, and an extremely flat light waveguide core. We repeatedly confirmed that the defect array could function as an approximately square light source when a 650-nm wavelength laser power was carefully introduced. Furthermore, we developed a hybrid numerical calculation method base on the finite-difference, time-domain method together with the beam propagation method. Utilizing this hybrid method, we evaluated the optical response when a particle runs across the light source while changing the aperture length of a shading mask to obtain signals with both higher intensity and shorter full width at half maximum. The numerical results were compared with experimental results obtained using an image acquisition system, and demonstrated good qualitative accord.     

A hybrid optical–mechanical calibration procedure for the Scalable-SPIDAR haptic device

In this research, a simple, yet, efficient calibration procedure is presented in order to improve the accuracy of the Scalable-SPIDAR haptic device. The two-stage procedure aims to reduce discrepancies between measured and actual values. First, we propose a new semi-automatic procedure for the initialization of the haptic device. To perform this initialization with a high level of accuracy, an infrared optical tracking device was used. Furthermore, audio and haptic cues were used to guide the user during the initialization process. Second, we developed two calibration methods based on regression techniques that effectively compensate for the errors in tracked position. Both neural networks and support vector regression methods were applied to calibrate the position errors present in the haptic device readings. A comparison between these two regression methods was carried out to show the underlying algorithm and to indicate the inherent advantages and limitations for each method. Initial evaluation of the proposed procedure indicated that it is possible to improve accuracy by reducing the Scalable-SPIDAR’s average absolute position error to about 6 mm within a 1 m × 1 m × 1 m workspace.