FULLY AUTOMATED OPTICAL ALIGNMENT FOR BIO- AND CHEMICAL SENSING BASED ON SILICON
Abstract
The complexity and maturity of integrated photonic chips provides a myriad of lab-onchip applications. These include bio- and chemical-sensing, optical computing and communications. Vast number of product development kits (PDKs) has become available in the public domain. Such an acceleration in technology advancement requires a better evaluation stage with full automation functions covering chip mounting, fiber alignment for input and output coupling, microfluidic channel insertion with active bio- and chemical analytes (sensing application), output spectrum analysis, insertion loss evaluation and post detection (O-E conversion) data analysis. Manual handling of these procedures will be time-consuming and labor intensive. In this DURIP proposal, we propose to purchase a fully automated alignment system with all the above-mentioned functions as turn-key system with unprecedented accuracy and time saving capability for sensing and modulation data analysis. The system to be acquired is solely available from Omega Optics which has acquired the sole license right from the three patents filed in UT Austin. The patents were the research finding results from a previously funded MURI program from AFOSR (contract No. FA 9550-08-1-0394). The estimated cost of such a system is $125,000.00. The fully automated system proposed herein can be employed to a myriad of applications including 1. On-chip laser, passive and active devices 2. Infectious diseases detection 3. Antibiotic monitoring detection 4. Detection of heavy metals, VOCs and TICs in water 5. Pathogen detection in Food & Beverage 6. Early cancer biomarkers detection 7. Pharmaceutical drug discovery It is truly an open platform suitable for many research programs from Army, Navy and Air Force. It is suitable not only for silicon chips but also all types of integrated photonic chips. In the context of bio- and chemical-sensing, it provides the sensitivity one order of magnitude better than the conventional ELISA.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2021
- Source ID
- FA95502010137
Entities
People
- Ray Chen
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- United States Air Force
- University of Texas at Austin