pH measurements in 16-nL-volume solutions using terahertz chemical microscopy.

Terahertz chemical microscopy has been developed for measuring the pH of a solution using only a small volume. The microsolution wells were fabricated on the surface of the sensing plate using a conventional photolithograph technique. Because the pH value can be calculated from the amplitude of a terahertz wave directly radiated from a sensing plate by a femtosecond laser irradiation, this method does not require any reference electrode in the solution. Thus, pH measurement can be achieved with a volume as small as 16 nL.