Finalist EPFL doctorate Award 2009 - Merenda Fabrice

Micro-optics for multiple laser trapping in microfluidics.

At the micrometric scale, laser light beams allow capturing and manipulating particles, incluiding biological matter. The thesis of Fabrice Merenda focuses on the formation laser trap arrays by matrices of micro-optical elements, and to their integration in microfluidic environments. A highly innovative approach to multiple optical trapping is introduced, based on arrays of miniaturized high-numerical-aperture parabolic mirrors, that allows the optics necessary for laser trapping, fluorescence excitation and collection to be integrated at the level of a microfluidic chip. Hundreds of biological particles, such as native vesicles or chemically functionalized micro-spheres, can be trapped in arrays within microfluidic environments for parallel analysis by fluorescence microscopy, while only nanoliters of chemical reagents are flown past the array.