Simultaneous, single-detector fluorescence detection of multiple fluorescent dyes

Microfluidics has made great progress in integrating many aspects of biological analysis and testing into the microscale. One aspect which has proven challenging to miniaturize has been fluorescence testing, as a complete fluorescence system requires an integrated light source, detector and filters to filter out the excitation light (from the light source) from the detector. Here we demonstrate that with polarization filtering of the excitation light and multiple dye sources modulated at different frequencies, a high-sensitivity, multi-dye system with one detector can be realized. Simultaneous detection and quantition of a mixture of two different dyes is demonstrated with no physical change in the measurement setup. The degree of interaction of the dyes is measured. This system is readily adaptable to integrated lab-on-a-chip microfluorescence.