Tunable visual color filter using microfluidic grating

Abstract

This paper reports a tunable visual color filter based on a microfluidic transmission grating. The grating lines are formed by the microflows in an array of evenly spaced straight microchannels. In experimental study, the transmission of white light measures a shift of visual color from red to blue in the zeroth order diffraction in response to a change of the refractive index from 1.3290 to 1.3782 in the microflows. The merit of large tunability of transmission peak (Δλ = 408 nm) makes this grating potential for various applications in biological and chemical measurements, such as space- and time-resolving micropattern spectrophotometers and separation of the fluorescence from the excitation.