Towards an Integrated Optofluidic Diffractive Spectrometer

We demonstrate an optofluidic lab-on-a-chip device by fabricating an optical transmission grating with an integrated microfluidic channel using soft lithography in polydimethylsiloxane. This integration of functionalities provides spectral analysis ldquoon-chiprdquo of the contents of the microfluidic channel. We demonstrate this functionality by performing a spectral analysis of chlorophyll probed using visible supercontinuum light. The grating device has a spectral resolving power of 330 and works over the visible wavelength range.