Portable Automatic Micro-Ring Resonator System Using a Subwavelength Grating Metamaterial Waveguide for High-Sensitivity Real-Time Optical-Biosensing Applications
The slow light sensor techniques have been applied to bio-related detection in the past decades. However, similar testing-systems are too large to carry to a remote area for diagnosis or point-of-care testing. This study demonstrated a fully automatic portable biosensing system based on the microring resonator. An optical-fiber array mounted on a controller based micro-positioning system, which can be interfaced with Matlab to locate a tentative position for light source and waveguide coupling alignment. Chip adapter and microfluidic channel could be packaged as a product such that it is cheap to manufacture and can be disposed of after every test conducted. Thus, the platform can be more easily operated via an ordinary user without expertise in photonics. It is designed based on conventional optical communication wavelength range. The C-band SLEDs light source couples in/out the micro-ring sensor to obtain quasi-TE mode by grating coupler techniques. For keeping a stable chemical binding reaction, the cost-effective microfluidic pump was developed to offer a specific flow rate of 20 µL/min by using a servo-motor, an Arduino board, and a motor driver. The subwavelength grating metamaterial ring resonator shows highly sensitive sensing performance via surface index changes due to biomarker adhered on the sensor. The real-time peak shifts monitoring shows 10 µg/mL streptavidin detection of limit based on the biotin-streptavidin binding reaction. Through the different specific receptors immobilized on the sensor surface, the system can be utilized on the open applications such as heavy metal detection, gas sensing, virus examination and cancer marker diagnosis.
- October 2020
- IEEE transactions on bio-medical engineering PP(99)
