CMOS photonics for optical manipulation of particles and biosensing

We will discuss the latest progress in our work on using complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) photonics for optical manipulation of dielectric microparticles and submicrometer particles in a microfluidic channel. Specifically, we will review optical trapping and routing of particles using silicon nitride waveguide-based directional couplers and multimode-interference (MMI)-based couplers. Our experiments reveal that microparticles can be directionally coupled from one waveguide to another waveguide via evanescent light coupling over submicrometer gap spacing. We also observe that microparticles can be preferentially transported to the larger field-intensity output-port of a 1×2 MMI optical power splitter. We thus envision that these photonic components, along with other photonic components that have previously been demonstrated with functionalities of optical manipulation of particles in fluids, constitute basic building blocks of CMOS optofluidic "particle circuits" for particle manipulation and biosensing.

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