Optofluidics is research field using microfluidics

Microfluidics

Microfluidics deals with the behavior, precise control and manipulation of fluids that are geometrically constrained to a small, typically sub-millimeter, scale.Typically, micro means one of the following features:* small volumes...

 and optics

Optics

Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...

. While the idea of fluid-optical devices can be traced back at least as far as the 18th century, and devices such as liquid mirror

Liquid mirror

Liquid mirror telescopes are telescopes made with a reflective liquid. The most common liquid used is mercury, but other liquids will work as well . The container for the liquid is rotating so that the liquid assumes a paraboloidal shape. A paraboloidal shape is precisely the shape needed for the...

 telescope

Telescope

A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...

s and dye laser

Dye laser

A dye laser is a laser which uses an organic dye as the lasing medium, usually as a liquid solution. Compared to gases and most solid state lasing media, a dye can usually be used for a much wider range of wavelengths. The wide bandwidth makes them particularly suitable for tunable lasers and...

s are relatively mature technologies, modern microfluidics presents a unique opportunity for creating unique microscale analogues of these early devices.

The term was coined in 2003 to reflect a new research field that combined microfluidic and optical (specifically nanophotonics

Nanophotonics

Nanophotonics or Nano-optics is the study of the behavior of light on the nanometer scale. It is considered as a branch of optical engineering which deals with optics, or the interaction of light with particles or substances, at deeply subwavelength length scales...

).
One of the primary applications of the field is for lab-on-a-chip

Lab-on-a-chip

A lab-on-a-chip is a device that integrates one or several laboratory functions on a single chip of only millimeters to a few square centimeters in size. LOCs deal with the handling of extremely small fluid volumes down to less than pico liters. Lab-on-a-chip devices are a subset of MEMS devices...

and biophotonic products.