Abstract

Happy Marriage Or A War Of The Roses? Spectroscopy And Microfluidics

Holger Becker, Chief Scientific Officer, microfluidic ChipShop GmbH

Spectroscopic methods such as Raman spectroscopy or SERS have seen an increasing interest in recent years due to progress in instrumentation and their principle advantage of being generically label-free methods. It is therefore not surprising that efforts have been made to combine these methods with microfluidics technology, mainly for integrating sample preparation or handling steps in a workflow. This combination has the potential on the one hand to extend the utilization of spectroscopic methods by integrating them in a more complex workflow; on the other hand it adds a versatile detection methodology to  the microfluidic toolbox. In this paper we will present different approaches and microfluidic chip architectures for life science disposables which include spectroscopic analysis methods. It will also highlight the challenges of this approach which mainly arise from material issues as especially polymers generate a spectroscopic background which has to be taken into account.