Ultrasound-Coupled Microdroplet Laser Chip for High-Throughput Hyperlipidemia Screening

TL;DR

This paper introduces ultrasound-coupled microdroplet laser chips that enable rapid, high-throughput measurement of biological fluid mechanical properties, significantly advancing disease screening capabilities with minimal sample volume.

Contribution

The study presents a novel microdroplet laser chip platform that combines ultrasound actuation with high-Q whispering gallery modes for efficient, large-scale mechanical property analysis of biological fluids.

Findings

Successfully fabricated microdroplets supporting high-Q lasing modes.

Demonstrated high-throughput screening of hyperlipidemia with over 2,000 measurements.

Achieved ultra-sensitive viscosity measurement with minimal sample volume.

Abstract

The mechanical properties of biological fluids can serve as early indicators of disease, offering valuable insights into complex physiological and pathological processes. However, the existing technologies can hardly support high throughput measurement, which hinders their broad applications in disease diagnosis. Here, we propose the ultrasound-coupled microdroplet laser chips to enable high-throughput measurement of the intrinsic mechanical properties of fluids. The microdroplets supporting high-Q (10^4) whispering gallery modes (WGM) lasing were massively fabricated on a hydrophobic surface with inject printing. The ultrasound was used to actuate the mechanical vibration of the microdroplets. We found that the stimulus-response of the laser emission is strongly dependent on the intrinsic mechanical properties of the liquid, which as subsequently employed to quantify the viscosity. The ultrasound-coupled microdroplet laser chips were used to monitor molecular interactions of bovine serum albumin. High-throughput screening of hyperlipidemia disease was also demonstrated by performing over 2,000 measurements using fast laser scanning. Thanks to the small volume of the microdroplets, a single drop of blood can support over eight billion measurements. The high-throughput ability and small sample consumption of the microlaser chip make it a promising tool for clinical diagnoses based on mechanical properties.