Optical positioning code disk, device and method for microfluidic chip

Abstract

An optical positioning code disk, device and method for a microfluidic chip are provided. A cross section of an outer contour of the code disk is circular. N light transmissive openings are arranged uniformly around the code disk. The device includes: the code disk, a positioning pin, a rotating shaft, a motor, an internal photoelectric switch and an external photoelectric switch. A positioning surface is provided on the rotating shaft. The motor is fixedly connected with an end of the rotating shaft, and the other end of the rotating shaft passes through a center of the cross section of the code disk. The internal and external photoelectric switches are configured to identify the light transmissive openings on the code disk.

Claims

1. An optical positioning code disk for a microfluidic chip, wherein: a cross section of an outer contour of the code disk is circular, N light transmissive openings are arranged uniformly around the code disk and include a first light transmissive opening, wherein along a radial direction of the code disk, a length of the first light transmissive opening is greater than a length of each of the N transmissive openings other than the first light transmissive opening, the first light transmissive opening corresponds to a first reaction tank among N reaction tanks of a microfluidic chip, and the other N light transmissive openings correspond to the other N reaction tanks, respectively.

2. The optical positioning code disk according to claim 1, wherein a width of each of the N light transmissive openings is calculated by the following formula:
L?d.sub.1*d.sub.2/d.sub.3 where L represents the width of each of the N light transmissive openings, d.sub.1 represents a diameter of each of the N reaction tanks of the microfluidic chip; d.sub.2 represents a diameter of the code disk; d.sub.3 represents a diameter of a circular arc of the reaction tank on the microfluidic chip and with a same circle center as the microfluidic chip.

3. An optical positioning device for a microfluidic chip, comprising: a code disk, a positioning pin, a rotating shaft, a motor, an internal photoelectric switch and an external photoelectric switch; wherein a positioning surface is provided on the rotating shaft; wherein a cross section of an outer contour of the code disk is circular, and N light transmissive openings are arranged uniformly around the code disk and include a first light transmissive opening, wherein a length of the first light transmissive opening is greater than a length of each of the other N light transmissive openings, the first light transmissive opening corresponds to a first reaction tank among N reaction tanks of a microfluidic the microfluidic chip, and the other N light transmissive openings correspond to the other N reaction tanks, respectively; wherein the motor is fixedly connected with an end of the rotating shaft, and another end of the rotating shaft passes through a center of the cross section of the code disk; wherein the N transmissive openings are capable to be positioned in alignment with the N reaction tanks, respectively, according to an angular relationship between the positioning surface and the positioning pin fixed at a positioning gap of the microfluidic chip; the internal photoelectric switch and the external photoelectric switch are configured to identify the light transmissive openings on the code disk.

4. The optical positioning device according to claim 3, wherein the code disk is integrally formed with the rotating shaft.

5. An optical positioning method for performing an optical positioning on a microfluidic chip by using an optical positioning device, wherein the optical positioning device comprises: a code disk, a positioning pin, a rotating shaft, a motor, an internal photoelectric switch and an external photoelectric switch; wherein a positioning surface is provided on the rotating shaft; wherein a cross section of an outer contour of the code disk is circular, and N light transmissive openings are arranged uniformly around the code disk and includes a first light transmissive opening, wherein a length of the first light transmissive opening is greater than a length of each of the other N light transmissive openings, the first light transmissive opening corresponds to a first reaction tank among N reaction tanks of the microfluidic chip, and the other N light transmissive openings correspond to the other N reaction tanks; wherein the motor is fixedly connected with an end of the rotating shaft, and another end of the rotating shaft passes through a center of the cross section of the code disk; the internal photoelectric switch and the external photoelectric switch are configured to identify the light transmissive openings on the code disk; wherein the optical positioning method comprising: a) positioning the N light transmissive openings of the code disk in alignment with the N reaction tanks, respectively, based on an angular relationship between the positioning surface and the positioning pin fixed at a positioning gap in the center of the microfluidic chip; using the internal photoelectric switch to identify the first light transmissive opening, and using the external photoelectric switch to identify the other N light transmissive openings; and c) starting the motor, to make the code disk and the microfluidic chip rotate synchronously, and performing data collection.

6. The optical positioning method according to claim 5, wherein the performing data collection in step c) comprises: generating, by the internal photoelectric switch and the external photoelectric switch, a rising edge and a falling edge of light transmitted through any of the N light transmissive openings; starting collecting data in response to the rising edge and stopping collecting data in response to the falling edge of light transmitted through any of the N light transmissive openings.

7. The optical positioning method according to claim 6, further comprising: discarding a part of data from a front end and a back end of the data, which is less than a threshold value; taking a median value from remaining data, wherein the median value serves as valid data for a corresponding one of the N reaction tanks.

8. The optical positioning method according to claim 7, wherein pieces of data associated with the same reaction tank, collected at different times are sorted in a chronological order to form an amplification curve.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) To illustrate technical solutions in the embodiments of the present disclosure more clearly, the drawings to be used in the description of the embodiments are described briefly hereinafter. It should be understood that the drawings described hereinafter show only some embodiments of the present disclosure, and are not intended to limit the present disclosure, for those skilled in the art, other associated drawings may be obtained according to these drawings without any creative effort.

(2) FIG. 1 is a schematic structural view of a microfluidic chip;

(3) FIG. 2 is a schematic view showing conventional continuous collection and positioning on a microfluidic chip;

(4) FIG. 3 is a schematic structural view of an optical positioning code disk for a microfluidic chip according to the present disclosure;

(5) FIG. 4 is a view showing a corresponding relationship between light transmissive openings on a code disk and reaction tanks of a microfluidic chip according to the present disclosure;

(6) FIG. 5 is a schematic structural view of an optical positioning device for a microfluidic chip according to the present disclosure;

(7) FIG. 6 is a schematic view showing continuous collection and positioning on a microfluidic chip by using the code disk according to the present disclosure; and

(8) FIG. 7 is a schematic view showing the data collection performed by using an optical positioning method for a microfluidic chip according to the present disclosure.

(9) Reference numerals are listed as follows.

(10) TABLE-US-00001 100 microfluidic chip, 101 reaction tank, 102 positioning gap, 200 code disk, 201 light transmissive opening, 301 excitation light path, 302 objective lens of a receiving light path system, 303 light shielding piece, 304 light spot, 400 rotating shaft, 401 positioning surface, 500 positioning pin, 600 motor, 701 internal photoelectric switch, 702 external photoelectric switch.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

(11) To make the objects, solutions and advantages of the present disclosure more clear and apparent, the present disclosure is described in detail in conjunction with the drawings and embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are used only to explain the present disclosure and are not intended to limit the present disclosure, that is, the described embodiments are only a few rather than all of the embodiments of the present disclosure. The components of the embodiments of the present disclosure, which are generally described and illustrated in drawings herein, may be arranged and designed in various different configurations. Therefore, the following detailed description of the embodiments of the present disclosure provided in drawings are not intended to limit the protection scope of the present disclosure, but merely represents the selected embodiments of the present disclosure. All other embodiments obtained by those skilled in the art without any creative work based on the embodiments of the present disclosure fall within the protection scope of the present disclosure.

(12) The present disclosure takes N=24, that is, a microfluidic chip having 24 reaction tanks as an example for description. As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, an optical positioning code disk 200 for a microfluidic chip is provided. A cross section of an outer contour of the code disk 200 is circular. 24 light transmissive openings 201 are arranged uniformly around the code disk. A length of a first light transmissive opening is greater than a length of each of a second light transmissive opening to a N-th light transmissive opening. The first light transmissive opening corresponds to a first reaction tank of the microfluidic chip 100. The second light transmissive opening to the 24-th light transmissive opening correspond to a second reaction tank to a 24-th reaction tank of the microfluidic chip 100 respectively.

(13) In an embodiment, a width of the light transmissive opening 201 is calculated by the following formula: L?d.sub.1*d.sub.2/d.sub.3, where d.sub.1 represents a diameter of the reaction tank 101 of the microfluidic chip 100; d.sub.2 represents a diameter of the code disk; d.sub.3 represents a diameter of a circular arc of the reaction tank 101 on the microfluidic chip 100 and with a same circle center as the microfluidic chip 100. In the common microfluidic chip 100, the diameter d.sub.1 of the reaction tank 101 is 3 mm; the diameter d.sub.3 of the circular arc of the reaction tank 101 on the microfluidic chip 100 and with a same circle center as the microfluidic chip 100 is 50 mm. Assuming that the diameter d.sub.2 of the code disk is 30 mm, in this case, the width of the light transmissive opening 201 is L=3*30/50=1.8 mm, thus, the detection data can cover the whole reaction tank 101 with L=1.8 mm.

(14) As shown in FIGS. 5 and 6, an optical positioning device for a microfluidic chip is provided. The optical positioning device includes the code disk 200, a positioning pin 500, a rotating shaft 400, a motor, an internal photoelectric switch and an external photoelectric switch. A positioning surface 401 is provided on the rotating shaft 400. The motor is fixedly connected with an end of the rotating shaft 400, and the other end of the rotating shaft 400 passes through a center of the cross section of the code disk 200. Positioning is performed by providing the positioning pin 500 at a positioning gap 102 of the microfluidic chip 100 to cooperate with the positioning surface 401. The internal photoelectric switch and the external photoelectric switch are configured to identify the light transmissive openings 201 on the code disk 200.

(15) In an embodiment, the code disk 200 is integrally formed with the rotating shaft 400.

(16) In an embodiment, it is provided an optical positioning method for performing an optical positioning on a microfluidic chip 100 by using the optical positioning device. The optical positioning method includes following steps 1-3.

(17) Step 1, make the light transmissive openings 201 of the code disk 200 be corresponding to the reaction tanks 101 of the microfluidic chip 100 respectively based on an angle relationship between the positioning surface 401 on the rotating shaft 400 and the positioning pin 500. It should be noted that, the code disk 200 is parallel to the cross section of the microfluidic chip 100.

(18) Step 2, mount the internal photoelectric switch and the external photoelectric switch, to make the internal photoelectric switch be able to identify the first light transmissive opening corresponding to the first reaction tank, and to make the external photoelectric switch be able to identify the second light transmissive opening to the 24-th light transmissive opening corresponding to the second reaction tank to the 24-th reaction tank respectively.

(19) Step 3, start the motor, to make the code disk 200 and the microfluidic chip 100 rotate synchronously, and perform data collection.

(20) In an embodiment, as shown in FIG. 7, the performing data collection in step 3 includes: generating a rising edge and a falling edge when the internal photoelectric switch or the external photoelectric switch detects the light transmissive opening 201 of the code disk 200 (that is, the rising edge is generated when the code disk enters the position of the light transmissive opening from the non-light-transmissive opening, and the falling edge is generated when the code disk enters the position of the non-light-transmissive opening from the light transmissive opening); starting from the first reaction tank, starting collecting a piece of data when the rising edge of the light transmissive opening 201 corresponding to the reaction tank 101 comes and stopping collecting the piece of data when the falling edge of the light transmissive opening 201 corresponding to the reaction tank 101 comes.

(21) In an embodiment, processing the collected pieces of data includes: removing a part of data accounting for a threshold value (the threshold value may be 5%, 10%, or other values according to actual needs) of each piece of data from a front end and a back end of the piece of data, taking a median value from remaining data of the piece of data, to obtain the median values A1, A2, . . . , A24 of the 24 reaction tanks 101 as valid data of the 24 reaction tanks 101 at a current time instant.

(22) In an embodiment, pieces of data of a same reaction tank 101 collected at different time instants are sorted in a chronological order to form an amplification curve.

(23) The above are only preferred embodiments of the present disclosure and are not intended to limit the present disclosure, and any modifications, equivalent substitutions and improvements within the spirit and the principle of the present disclosure are included within the protection scope of the present disclosure.