IMPACT OF OSMOSIS ON MICRO-DROPLETS - A NEW ROUTE TO NOVEL SENSORS

Micro-droplets generated by microfluidic techniques provide a powerful system to monitor chemical reactions and biological systems in picoliter volumes over time. In particular the analysis of reactions inside the droplets is of high importance for various technological applications. Such applications usually require specific labels and detection systems, which are e.g. based on fluorescence labeling. Here we report on a novel approach that exploits the osmosis-driven change of droplet size as a quantitative and label-free detection method. To evaluate the potential of droplets as sensor-systems, we quantify the impact of osmosis on the droplet size in various static and dynamic systems.