Photonic crystal slab and waveguide design for biological detection
Paper Abstract
In this work we have designed, fabricated, and tested a photonic crystal slab (PCS) with a line defect waveguide for the
detection and identification of pathogenic DNA. A PCS is constructed by fabricating a material with 2-dimensional
dielectric periodicity sandwiched between two semi-infinite cladding regions of lower effective index [1]. In order to
uniquely identify pathogens critical to medical and homeland defense applications, the PCS was functionalized with a
single stranded probe molecule providing highly specific binding for the target DNA. Integrated microfluidic channels
provide delivery of the pathogen DNA resulting in hybridization and binding in the PCS holes. The binding event
changes the refractive index of the PCS which results in a measurable change in the transmitted power. We will discuss
design parameters and the suite of modeling tools used to optimize the PCS, defect waveguide, and coupling devices.
An overview of the fabrication methods and tools will be provided and we will also report preliminary experimental
results.
This paper was published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7322