Ultrasensitive detection of vital biomolecules based on a multi-purpose BioMEMS for Point of care testing: digoxin measurement as a case study.

Rapid and label-free detection of very low concentrations of biomarkers in disease diagnosis or therapeutic drug monitoring is essential to prevent disease progression in Point of Care Testing. For this purpose, we propose a multi-purpose optical Bio-Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (BioMEMS) sensing platform which can precisely measure very small changes of biomolecules concentrations in plasma-like buffer samples. This is realized by the development of an interferometric detection method on highly sensitive MEMS transducers (cantilevers). This approach facilitates the precise analysis of the obtained results to determine the analyte type and its concentrations. Furthermore, the proposed multi-purpose platform can be used for a wide range of biological assessments in various concentration levels by the use of an appropriate bioreceptor and the control of its coating density on the cantilever surface. In this study, the present system is prepared for the identification of digoxin medication in its therapeutic window for therapeutic drug monitoring as a case study. The experimental results represent the repeatability and stability of the proposed device as well as its capability to detect the analytes in less than eight minutes for all samples. In addition, according to the experiments carried out for very low concentrations of digoxin in plasma-like buffer, the detection limit of LOD = 300 fM and the maximum sensitivity of S = 5.5 × 1012 AU/M are achieved for the implemented biosensor. The present ultrasensitive multi-purpose BioMEMS sensor can be a fully-integrated, cost-effective device to precisely analyze various biomarker concentrations for various biomedical applications.

Accurate characterization of complex Bloch modes in optical chain waveguides using real-valued computations.

This research presents a highly accurate and easy-to-implement method to characterize the complex Bloch modes propagating along optical chain waveguides with three-dimensional (3D) layered geometries and dispersive negative-epsilon material compositions. The technique combines commercial EM solver results with analytical post-processing to avoid iterative complex root estimation on the complex plane. The proposed methodology is based on the real-valued computations that yield the complex Bloch wavevector with superior accuracy even when both radiation and material losses are present. In addition, we introduce a single unit-cell technique to provide the possibility of dense meshing of 3D geometries when available computational resources are limited. To verify our results, two different plasmonic and dielectric case studies are discussed. The obtained results agree well with numerical and experimental results from the literature. Due to its generality, robustness, and high accuracy, the method is beneficial for studying a large variety of waveguide-based nanophotonic components.

Ultrasensitive miniaturized planar microwave sensor for characterization of water-alcohol mixtures.

Designing a low-cost, compact, yet sensitive planar microwave sensor for complex permittivity measurement is highly desired for numerous applications though quite challenging. Here, in this research, an ultrasensitive planar microwave sensor is proposed which is based on an electric LC structure. The core sensor was fabricated on an FR-4 substrate using a simple fabrication process, then integrated within a polymethylmethacrylate microfluidic channel for straightforward liquid delivery to the sensing region. The resonance frequency of the bare sensor was designed to occur at 4.14 GHz while empty and shifted to 0.88 GHz when deionized water flows into the channel. The sensor response has been characterized for different mixture ratios of methanol and ethanol with deionized water. Next, the complex permittivity of the resulted binary mixtures has been extracted by the Debye model through a least square fitting method. The calculated average sensitivity is 1.45% which stands above most of sensors reported in the literature. Besides, the sensor has a small footprint with dimensions of 3.6 × 3.8 mm[Formula: see text] making it a suitable candidate for integration with point-of-care testing devices.

Disk-loaded silicon micro-ring resonator for high-Q resonance.

By adding two disks to a standard silicon micro-ring resonator, a very high-quality factor (Q) asymmetric resonance with Q values as high as 7.773 × 105 and slope rates in excess of 880 dB/nm can be achieved. A circuit model has been proposed for this device based on which an analysis has been carried out that can predict the effect of reflections in the coupling components. Depending on the coupling coefficient between the disks and the micro-ring resonator (MRR), it is possible to use this design in three regimes, with different spectral features. Moreover, it is shown that the disks introduce a discontinuity in the transmission spectrum and the relative positioning of the disks in the ring provides a new degree of freedom in the design step. The proposed device features a high extinction ratio (ER) around 1550 nm and could be fabricated in any standard silicon photonics technology without requiring any extra materials or processing steps. The proposed resonator has a high sensitivity of ΔλRes (nm)/Δn > 299 nm/RIU, which makes it suitable for sensing applications and efficient modulators.

Entangled Nanoplasmonic Cavities for Estimating Thickness of Surface-Adsorbed Layers.

Plasmonic sensors provide real-time and label-free detection of biotargets with unprecedented sensitivity and detection limit. However, they usually lack the ability to estimate the thickness of the target layer formed on top of the sensing surface. Here, we report a sensing modality based on reflection spectroscopy of a nanoplasmonic Fabry-Perot cavity array, which exhibits characteristics of both surface plasmon polaritons and localized plasmon resonances and outperforms its conventional counterparts by providing the thickness of the surface-adsorbed layers. Through numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the designed plasmonic surface resembles two entangled Fabry-Perot cavities excited from both ends. Performance of the device is evaluated by studying sensor response in the refractive index (RI) measurement of aqueous glycerol solutions and during formation of a surface-adsorbed layer consisting of protein (i.e., NeutrAvidin) molecules. By tracking the resonance wavelengths of the two modes of the nanoplasmonic surface, it is therefore possible to measure the thickness of a homogeneous adsorbed layer and RI of the background solution with precisions better than 4 nm and 0.0001 RI units. Using numerical simulations, we show that the thickness estimation algorithm can be extended for layers consisting of nanometric analytes adsorbed on an antibody-coated sensor surface. Furthermore, performance of the device has been evaluated to detect exosomes. By providing a thickness estimation for adsorbed layers and differentiating binding events from background RI variations, this device can potentially supersede conventional plasmonic sensors.

Interaction of two guided-mode resonances in an all-dielectric photonic crystal for uniform SERS.

For sensing and imaging applications of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), one needs a substrate with the capability of generating a consistent and uniform response and increased signal enhancement. To this goal, we propose a photonic-crystal (PC) structure capable of supporting large field enhancement due to its high quality-factor resonance. Moreover, we demonstrate that the interaction of two modes of this all-dielectric PC can provide an almost uniform field enhancement across the unit cell of the PC. This is of practical importance for SERS applications. The designed structure can support a maximum field enhancement of 70 and 97 percent of uniformity.

Analysis of 2-D dielectric-waveguide-coupled optical ring resonators using a transmission-line formulation.

A rigorous and fast method for a Fourier-based analysis of 2-D dielectric-waveguide-coupled optical ring resonators (ORRs) is presented. As a first step, the structure under investigation is periodically repeated along a specific direction. The resulting periodic structure is then analyzed using a transmission-line formulation (TLF). For a sufficiently long period, the solutions of the resulting periodic structure converge with those of the actual structure. As will be demonstrated, the simulation time for the analysis of a sample ORR of high-index contrast at a single frequency point amounts to a few seconds without remarkable computing resources. Our results are in close agreement with those of the pseudospectral time-domain (PSTD).

One-dimensional finite-elements method for the analysis of whispering gallery microresonators.

By taking advantage of axial symmetry of the planar whispering gallery microresonators, the three-dimensional (3D) problem of the resonator is reduced to a two-dimensional (2D) one; thus, only the cross section of the resonator needs to be analyzed. Then, the proposed formulation, which works based on a combination of the finite-elements method (FEM) and Fourier expansion of the fields, can be applied to the 2D problem. First, the axial field variation is expressed in terms of a Fourier series. Then, a FEM method is applied to the radial field variation. This formulation yields an eigenvalue problem with sparse matrices and can be solved using a well-known numerical technique. This method takes into account both the radiation loss and the dielectric loss; hence, it works efficiently either for high number or low number modes. Efficiency of the method was investigated by comparison of the results with those of commercial software.

Nanoscale all-optical plasmonic switching using electromagnetically induced transparency.

An all-optical switch composed of two interacting nanoparticles in front of an optical dielectric slab waveguide is proposed. An incident optical signal is coupled to the optical waveguide after scattering by the two nanoparticles. The scattered fields interfere constructively or destructively depending on the degree of optical transparency the nanoparticles induced by an optical control signal. The considered nanoparticles have a metallic core coated by an outer shell with three-level clusters such that the nanoparticles can exhibit electromagnetically induced transparency. A dipole-approximation model-based analysis reveals that a high rejection ratio can be achieved using the proposed configuration.

Plasmonic grating as a nonlinear converter-coupler.

The paper introduces a wavelength converter composed of a metallic finite 2-dimensional particle grating on top of an optical waveguide. The particles sustain plasmonic resonances which will result in the near-field enhancement and therefore, high conversion efficiency. Due to near-field interaction of the grating field with the propagating modes of the waveguide, the generated third harmonic wave is phase-matched to a propagating mode of the waveguide, while the fundamental frequency component is not coupled into the output waveguide of the structure. The performance of this structure is numerically investigated using a full-wave transmission line method for the linear analysis and a three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method for the nonlinear analysis.

Perturbation analysis of plane-wave transmission through a dielectric slab with Kerr-type nonlinearity.

Multiple-scale analysis is employed for the analysis of plane-wave refraction at a nonlinear slab. It will be demonstrated that the perturbation method will lead to a nonuniformly valid approximation to the solution of the nonlinear wave equation. To construct a uniformly valid approximation, we will exploit multiple-scale analysis. Using this method, we will derive the zeroth-order approximation to the solution of the nonlinear wave equation analytically. This approximate solution clearly shows the effects of self-phase modulation (SPM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) on plane-wave refraction at the nonlinear slab. As will be shown, the proposed method can be generalized to the rigorous study of nonlinear wave propagation in one-dimensional photonic band-gap structures.