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I'm trying to find a system for getting quantitative (velocity profiles) information for microfluidic devices, microchannels with a fluid and a solid tracer particle driven by electo-osmosis.  This is a new field to me so I'm struggling to find the best system.  Essentially we are looking at a confocal system because of the high spatial resolution and z plane resolution and because confocal systems keep getting faster and faster I think we can get the required temporal resolution to track flowing particles.  So my main requirement is speed, at least 20-30 frames per second, beyond that I'm wondering what is the best system avaliable for tracking particles flowing in microchannels using fluorescent dyes like FITC (~490 nm).  I'd like to do 4-D particle tracking and generate velocity profiles (I hope that the software that comes with a confocal system will have that capability).  I'm assuming that I should go with a spinning disk, I'm trying to set up demo's to see the PerkinEl
mer Ultraview EMCCD, the Zeiss LSM 5 LIVE, and the Olympus DSU.  I've never used confocal microscopy and I'm not sure what my hurdels and complications are going to be when trying to use a spinning disk(or slit or point scanning) confocal microscopy unit for microfluidic applications.  Most literature I find is for Bio applications so any advice or input would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

Orin Hemminger
Graduate Student
The Ohio State University
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
USA
1-614-292-4935