Li Liang

Bio: Li Liang is an academic researcher from Wuhan University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Optofluidics & Total internal reflection. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 11 publications receiving 175 citations.

Precise Sorting of Gold Nanoparticles in a Flowing System

Abstract: Precise sorting of gold nanoparticles is important, but it still remains a big challenge. Traditional methods such as centrifugation can separate nanoparticles with a high throughput but at the cost of low precision. Optical tweezers enable the precise manipulation of a single nanoparticle in steady liquid environments. However, this method may become problematic when dealing with a considerable amount of nanoparticles in a flowing system due to the difficulties in balancing the additional Stokes forces by the fast velocity of streams and in controlling all dispersed nanoparticles with disorderly positions. Here, we exploit optical and hydrodynamic forces to sort gold nanoparticles in the flowing system, obtaining simultaneously high precision and considerable throughput. This is accomplished by utilizing opposite impinging streams to generate a stagnation point, near which the flow velocity becomes very small to reduce the Stokes force and to prolong the optical acting time. Nanoparticles of different si...

Optofluidics: the interaction between light and flowing liquids in integrated devices

Abstract: Optofluidics is a rising technology that combines microfluidics and optics. Its goal is to manipulate light and flowing liquids on the micro/nanoscale and exploiting their interaction in optofluidic chips. The fluid flow in the on-chip devices is reconfigurable, non-uniform and usually transports substances being analyzed, offering a new idea in the accurate manipulation of lights and biochemical samples. In this paper, we summarized the light modulation in heterogeneous media by unique fluid dynamic properties such as molecular diffusion, heat conduction, centrifugation effect, light-matter interaction and others. By understanding the novel phenomena due to the interaction of light and flowing liquids, quantities of tunable and reconfigurable optofluidic devices such as waveguides, lenses, and lasers are introduced. Those novel applications bring us firm conviction that optofluidics would provide better solutions to high-efficient and high-quality lab-on-chip systems in terms of biochemical analysis and environment monitoring.

Optofluidic restricted imaging, spectroscopy and counting of nanoparticles by evanescent wave using immiscible liquids.

Abstract: Conventional flow cytometry (FC) suffers from the diffraction limit for the detection of nanoparticles smaller than 100 nm, whereas traditional total internal reflection (TIR) microscopy can only detect few samples near the solid-liquid interface mostly in static states. Here we demonstrate a novel on-chip optofluidic technique using evanescent wave sensing for single nanoparticle real time detection by combining hydrodynamic focusing and TIR using immiscible flows. The immiscibility of the high-index sheath flow and the low-index core flow naturally generate a smooth, flat and step-index interface that is ideal for the TIR effect, whose evanescent field can penetrate the full width of the core flow. Hydrodynamic focusing can focus on all the nanoparticles in the extreme centre of the core flow with a width smaller than 1 μm. This technique enables us to illuminate every single sample in the running core flow by the evanescent field, leaving none unaffected. Moreover, it works well for samples much smaller than the diffraction limit. We have successfully demonstrated the scattering imaging and counting of 50 nm and 100 nm Au nanoparticles and also the fluorescence imaging and counting of 200 nm beads. The effective counting speeds are estimated as 1500, 2300 and 2000 particles per second for the three types of nanoparticles, respectively. The optical scattering spectra were also measured to determine the size of individual Au nanoparticles. This provides a new technique to detect nanoparticles and we foresee its application in the detection of molecules for biomedical analyses.

Tunable self-imaging effect using hybrid optofluidic waveguides

Abstract: Multimode interference (MMI) is a typical self-imaging phenomenon and has been widely exploited for optical devices like couplers and splitters. Usually, it utilizes solid waveguides only and thus has very limited tunability in self-imaging properties. This paper reports our original work on tunable MMI using a hybrid optofluidic waveguide. It is generated by the diffusion between miscible flows in a microchannel and consists of two parts: gradient-index liquid–liquid waveguide for light modulation and step-index liquid–solid waveguide for image formation. Simulation and experiments have shown successful realization of the real-time tuning of self-imaging properties. For detail, the image point (focal spot) width could be modulated from 7 μm to 16 μm, and the self-imaging period changes in the range of 500 μm by varying the fluid properties. It is foreseeable that such a hybrid optofluidic waveguide may find wider applications in lab-on-a-chip systems and optical devices.

Tunable transformation optical waveguide bends in liquid

Abstract: Optical waveguide bends are indispensable to integrated optical systems, and many methods to mitigate bend loss have thus been proposed. Transformation optics (TO) causes light to travel around a bend as if it was propagating in a straight waveguide, eliminating the bend loss. Many reported TO waveguide bends have utilized solid materials, but there are fundamental difficulties for real applications because of their complex fabrication, lack of reconfiguration, and the so-called effective medium condition. Here, we develop a method to overcome these problems using the convection–diffusion of liquids. It enables real-time tunable transformation optical waveguide bends using natural liquid diffusion while still exhibiting the major merits of quasi-conformal mapping. We have experimentally demonstrated bending in visible light by 90 and 180° while preserving the intensity profile at a reasonably high level of fidelity. This work bridges fluid dynamics and optics and has the potential for application in on-chip biological, chemical, and biomedical measurements, as well as detectors and tunable optical systems.

Fundamentals of optical waveguides

Abstract: Preface 1. Wave Theory of Optical Waveguides 2. Planar Optical Waveguides 3. Optical Fibers 4. Couple Mode Theory 5. Nonlinear Optical Effects in Optical Fibers 6. Finite Element Method 7. Beam Propagation Method 8. Staircase Concatention Method 9. Planar Lightwave Circuits 10. Theorems and Formulas Appendix

Nanometer-precision linear sorting with synchronized optofluidic dual barriers

Abstract: The past two decades have witnessed the revolutionary development of optical trapping of nanoparticles, most of which deal with trapping stiffness larger than 10-8 N/m. In this conventional regime, however, it remains a formidable challenge to sort out sub-50-nm nanoparticles with single-nanometer precision, isolating us from a rich flatland with advanced applications of micromanipulation. With an insightfully established roadmap of damping, the synchronization between optical force and flow drag force can be coordinated to attempt the loosely overdamped realm (stiffness, 10-10 to 10-8 N/m), which has been challenging. This paper intuitively demonstrates the remarkable functionality to sort out single gold nanoparticles with radii ranging from 30 to 50 nm, as well as 100- and 150-nm polystyrene nanoparticles, with single nanometer precision. The quasi-Bessel optical profile and the loosely overdamped potential wells in the microchannel enable those aforementioned nanoparticles to be separated, positioned, and microscopically oscillated. This work reveals an unprecedentedly meaningful damping scenario that enriches our fundamental understanding of particle kinetics in intriguing optical systems, and offers new opportunities for tumor targeting, intracellular imaging, and sorting small particles such as viruses and DNA.

Trapping light by mimicking gravitational lensing

Abstract: We propose a distorted optical waveguide around a microsphere to mimic curved spacetimes caused by the “gravitational fields”. Gravitational lensing effects analogues are experimentally demonstrated and this can be used to prospective light harvesting.

Full-angle tomographic phase microscopy of flowing quasi-spherical cells.

Abstract: We report a reliable full-angle tomographic phase microscopy (FA-TPM) method for flowing quasi-spherical cells along microfluidic channels. This method lies in a completely passive optical system, i.e. mechanical scanning or multi-direction probing of the sample is avoided. It exploits the engineered rolling of cells while they are flowing along a microfluidic channel. Here we demonstrate significant progress with respect to the state of the art of in-flow TPM by showing a general extension to cells having almost spherical shapes while they are flowing in suspension. In fact, the adopted strategy allows the accurate retrieval of rotation angles through a theoretical model of the cells' rotation in a dynamic microfluidic flow by matching it with phase-contrast images resulting from holographic reconstructions. So far, the proposed method is the first and the only one that permits to get in-flow TPM by probing the cells with full-angle, achieving accurate 3D refractive index mapping and the simplest optical setup, simultaneously. Proof of concept experiments were performed successfully on human breast adenocarcinoma MCF-7 cells, opening the way for the full characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the new paradigm of liquid biopsy.

High-Throughput Isolation of Circulating Tumor Cells Using Cascaded Inertial Focusing Microfluidic Channel.

Abstract: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are rare cells that detach from a primary or metastasis tumor and flow into the bloodstream. Intact and viable tumor cells are needed for genetic characterization of CTCs, new drug development, and other research. Although separation of CTCs using spiral channel with two outlets has been reported, few literature demonstrated simultaneous isolation of different types of CTCs from human blood using cascaded inertial focusing microfluidic channel. Herein, we introduce a cascaded microfluidic device consisting of two spiral channels and one zigzag channel designed with different fluid fields, including lift force, Dean drag force, and centrifugal force. Both red blood cells (RBCs)-lysed human blood spiked with CTCs and 1:50 diluted human whole blood spiked with CTCs were tested on the presented chip. This chip successfully separated RBCs, white blood cells (WBCs), and two different types of tumor cells (human lung cancer cells (A549) and human breast cancer cells (MCF-7)) simult...