Hybrid micro-/nano-particle image velocimetry for 3D3C multi-scale velocity field measurement in microfluidics

Abstract

The conventional two-dimensional (2D) micro-particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) technique has inherent bias error due to the depth of focus along the optical axis to measure the velocity field near the wall of a microfluidics device. However, the far-field measurement of velocity vectors yields good accuracy for micro-scale flows. Nano-PIV using the evanescent wave of total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy can measure near-field velocity vectors within a distance of around 200 nm from the solid surface. A micro-/nano-hybrid PIV system is proposed to measure both near- and far-field velocity vectors simultaneously in microfluidics. A near-field particle image can be obtained by total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy using nanoparticles, and the far-field velocity vectors are measured by three-hole defocusing micro-particle tracking velocimetry (micro-PTV) using micro-particles. In order to identify near- and far-field particle images, lasers of different wavelengths are adopted and tested in a straight microchannel for acquiring the three-dimensional three-component velocity field. We found that the new technique gives superior accuracy for the velocity profile near the wall compared to that of conventional nano-PIV. This method has been successfully applied to precisely measure wall shear stress in 2D microscale Poiseulle flows.