2014, Lin, G., Makarov, D., Melzer, M., Si, W., Yan, C., Schmidt, O.G.

A grand vision of realization of smart and compact multifunctional microfluidic devices for wearable health monitoring, environment sensing and point-of-care tests emerged with the fast development of flexible electronics. As a vital component towards this vision, magnetic functionality in flexible fluidics is still missing although demanded by the broad utility of magnetic nanoparticles in medicine and biology. Here, we demonstrate the first flexible microfluidic analytic device with integrated high-performance giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensors. This device can be bent to a radius of 2 mm while still retaining its full performance. Various dimensions of magnetic emulsion droplets can be probed with high precision using a limit of detection of 0.5 pl, providing broad applicability in high-throughput droplet screening, flow cytometry and drug development. The flexible feature of this analytic device holds great promise in the realization of wearable, implantable multifunctional platforms for biomedical, pharmaceutical and chemical applications.