High-throughput soft particle mechanical measurements by Capillary Micromechanics in a microfluidic chip

Capillary Micromechanics is a simple and direct method for probing the mechanics of microscopic soft objects. It is based on measuring the pressureinduced deformation of soft particles or cells, as they are forced into a tapered glass microcapillary. However, there are several limitations, such as low throughput, lack of device reusability, and device fragility. To overcome these drawbacks, we developed a fused-silica microfluidic chip with parallel, tapered channels of circular cross section. We fabricate the chip using femtosecond (fs) laser micromachining in combination with chemical wet etching (CWE)[2] and test it by measuring the mechanical properties of soft hydrogel particles.