Articolo in rivista, 2017, ENG, 10.1117/12.2271829

Investigation on microfluidic particles manipulation by holographic 3D tracking strategies

Teresa Cacace, Melania Paturzo, Pasquale Memmolo, Massimo Vassalli, Massimiliano Fraldi, Giuseppe Mensitieri, Pietro Ferraro

Istituto di Scienze Applicata e Sistemi Intelligenti-CNR (Italy); Istituto di Biofisica - CNR (Italy); Univ. degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (Italy)

We demonstrate a 3D holographic tracking method to investigate particles motion in a microfluidic channel while unperturbed while inducing their migration through microfluidic manipulation. Digital holography (DH) in microscopy is a full-field, label-free imaging technique able to provide quantitative phase-contrast. The employed 3D tracking method is articulated in steps. First, the displacements along the optical axis are assessed by numerical refocusing criteria. In particular, an automatic refocusing method to recover the particles axial position is implemented employing a contrast-based refocusing criterion. Then, the transverse position of the in-focus object is evaluated through quantitative phase map segmentation methods and centroid-based 2D tracking strategy. The introduction of DH is thus suggested as a powerful approach for control of particles and biological samples manipulation, as well as a possible aid to precise design and implementation of advanced lab-on-chip microfluidic devices.

Proceedings of SPIE

Keywords

Digital Holography, Pattern recognition, target tracking, Three-dimensional microscopy

CNR authors

Ferraro Pietro, Vassalli Massimo, Paturzo Melania, Memmolo Pasquale

CNR institutes

IBF – Istituto di biofisica, ISASI – Istituto di Scienze Applicate e Sistemi Intelligenti "Eduardo Caianiello"