Depth position detection for fast moving objects in sealed microchannel utilizing chromatic aberration

This research reports a novel method for depth position measurement of fast moving objects inside a microfluidic channel based on the chromatic aberration effect. Two band pass filters and two avalanche photodiodes (APD) are used for rapid detecting the scattered light from the passing objected. Chromatic aberration results in the lights of different wavelengths focus at different depth positions in a microchannel. The intensity ratio of two selected bands of 430 nm-470 nm (blue band) and 630 nm-670 nm (red band) scattered from the passing object becomes a significant index for the depth information of the passing object. Results show that microspheres with the size of 20 μm and 2 μm can be resolved while using PMMA (Abbe number, V = 52) and BK7 (V = 64) as the chromatic aberration lens, respectively. The throughput of the developed system is greatly enhanced by the high sensitive APDs as the optical detectors. Human erythrocytes are also successfully detected without fluorescence labeling at a high flow velocity of 2.8 mm/s. With this approach, quantitative measurement for the depth position of rapid moving objects inside a sealed microfluidic channel can be achieved in a simple and low cost way.