The Hardware

This is what you add your fluorescent antibodies and water sample to. Paper-based microfluidics is kind of a specialty in the Yoon Biosensors Lab.

Our fluorescence microscope is as simple as you can make it. We purchased a microscope attachment off of Amazon, an optical filter from ThorLabs, and a cheap little battery-powered LED to provide the light. This part probably has the highest variability if you are trying to create it on your own. Main important parts are to get a microscope with the highest magnification possible, and to choose an optical filter that isolates only the unique emission wavelengths of your fluorescent particles (these are talked about in The Chemicals).

This 3D-printed case has two purposes. The first is that it is sturdy and holds all our parts together. The second is that it acts as a black box to eliminate any outside light from getting into your microscope. This reallllly helps for the image processing that happens in The Software.