Micro-optical lens array for fluorescence detection in droplet-based microfluidics† †Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Supplementary Figures (S1 and S2). Supplementary movie 01: movie recorded by a high-speed camera without backlight illumination. Supplementary movie 02: movie recorded under similar conditions as movie 01 with backlight illumination. Supplementary movie 03: captured using a standard camera through the eyepiece of the microscope at a frame rate of 23 fps. See DOI: 10.1039/c3lc41329bClick here for additional data file. Click here for additional data file. Click here for additional data file. Click here for additional data file

We demonstrate the design and integration of droplet-based microfluidic devices with microoptical element arrays for enhanced detection of fluorescent signals.
We demonstrate the design and integration of droplet-based microfluidic devices with microoptical element arrays for enhanced detection of fluorescent signals. We show that the integration of microlenses and mirror surfaces in these devices results in an 8-fold increase in the fluorescence signal and in improved spatial resolution. Using an array of microlenses, massively parallel detection of droplets containing fluorescent dyes was achieved, leading to detection throughputs of about 2000 droplets per second and per lens, parallelized over 625 measurement points.