IEEE S.F. Bay Area Council e-GRID's
BayAreaTech

TUESDAY July 29, 2014
SCV Nanotechnology Chapter
– planar, hollow-core waveguides, detection, diagnostics …
Speaker: Prof. Holger Schmidt, Department of Electrical Engineering, UCSC
Time: Networking, Pizza at 11:30 AM; Presentation at 12:00 PM
Cost: none
Place: TI Auditorium E-1, 2900 Semiconductor Drive. Santa Clara
RSVP: from website
Web: sites.ieee.org/sfbanano

Integrated photonic devices have traditionally been designed for data communications using exclusively solid-state materials.  However, a vast area of potential applications, in particular in the life sciences, involve interactions of light with liquids and gases.  Recently, a number of optofluidic approaches have been considered that are aimed at integrating such non-solid media with chip-scale photonic structures. We have developed a versatile, planar photonic platform based on hollow-core optical waveguides.  I will describe the physical foundations and optical characteristics of this platform and a broad range of devices and capabilities that are made possible by this approach.  In particular, I will discuss the incorporation of nanoscale features for enhanced chip-scale particle detection, manipulation and trapping.  I will outline a path to a fluidically and optically integrated “optofluidic” platform that enables direct detection of single nucleic acids and proteins for a new generation of photonics-based molecular diagnostic instruments.