Ricerc@Sapienza

We present optoelectronic tunable and switchable devices for integrated optics based on easy-to-build optical waveguides. The devices take advantage of the spontaneous homeotropically alignment of liquid crystals (LC) molecules to the surface of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic channel (LC:PDMS). This behaviour was investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations, which allowed to evaluate the molecular organization and ordering inside the cell.

Here, we report on the design, fabrication and characterization of a prototype of a portable detection system, able to determine if the contamination level of Ochratoxin A (OTA) is below or above the limit imposed by the EU Commission for a specific food. The operating principle of the system is the real-time monitoring of a chromatographic run when an extract of the sample under analysis is spotted on a High Performances Thin Layer Chromatographic plate.