Implementation of a high resolution optical feedback interferometer for microfluidics applications

Recent progress of interferometric sensors based on the optical feedback in a laser diode have demonstrated possibility for measurement of flow rates and flow-profiles at the micro-scale. That type of compact and embedded sensors is very promising for a research and industrial field –microfluidics – that is a growing domain of activities, at the frontiers of the physics, the chemical science, the biology and the biomedical. However, the acquisition of flow rate or local velocity at high resolution remains a very challenging issue, and the sensors that have been proposed so far did not have been giving sufficient information on the nature of the particles flowing. The present thesis is driven to the implementation, validation and evaluation of the sensing performances of the optical feedback interferometry technology in both chemical and biomedical fields of applications. The elaboration of a new generation of sensors that will provide both a high spatial resolution for 2D Doppler imaging is presented, as well as a methodology that gives further information on the flowing particles concentration and/or dimensions. Then, a new embedded optical feedback interferometry imager for flowmetry has been realized using a 2-axis beamsteering mirror mounted on Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) thus taking the full advantage of the compactness offered by the optical feedback interferometry sensing scheme. While previous works on optical feedback interferometry flowmetry have been limited to high particle densities fluids in single or multiple scattering regimes, we present also a sensing technique based on the optical feedback interferometry scheme in a laser diode that enables single particle detection at micro and nanoscales through the Doppler-Fizeau effect. Thanks to the proposed signal processing, this sensing technique can detect the presence of single spherical polystyrene micro/nanospheres seeded in watery suspensions, and measure their flow velocity, even when their diameter is below half the laser wavelength. It discriminates particle by their diameter up to a ratio of 5 between large and small ones while most of the technologies for particle characterization is bulk and requires manipulation of the fluid with small volume handling, precise flow and concentration control. Altogether, the results presented in this thesis realize a major improvement for the use of optical feedback interferometry in the chemical engineering or biomedical applications involving micro-scale flows