Microfluidic and optical systems for the on-demand generation and manipulation of single femtoliter-volume aqueous droplets

This paper describes a fluidic and optical platform for the generation and manipulation of single femtoliter-volume aqueous droplets. Individual droplets were generated on-demand using a microfluidic chamber that confers environmental flow stability. Optical vortex traps were implemented to manipulate and transport the generated droplets, which have a lower refractive index than the immiscible medium in which the droplets are immersed and thus cannot be trapped using conventional optical tweezers. We also demonstrated the ability to shrink and increase the refractive index of the generated droplet, thereby permitting its facile fusion with another droplet using an optical tweezer. To illustrate the versatility of this platform, we have performed both fast (< 1 s) and slow (> 1 h) chemical reactions in these femtoliter-volume aqueous droplets.