The electro-photonic silicon biosensor

José Juan Colás, Alison Parkin, Katherine Elizabeth Dunn, Mark Gerard Scullion, Thomas Fraser Krauss, Steven David Johnson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

The emergence of personalized and stratified medicine requires label-free, low-cost diagnostic technology capable of monitoring multiple disease biomarkers in parallel. Silicon photonic biosensors combine high-sensitivity analysis with scalable, low-cost manufacturing, but they tend to measure only a single biomarker and provide no information about their (bio)chemical activity. Here we introduce an electrochemical silicon photonic sensor capable of highly sensitive and multiparameter profiling of biomarkers. Our electrophotonic technology consists of microring resonators optimally n-doped to support high Q resonances alongside electrochemical processes in situ. The inclusion of electrochemical control enables site-selective immobilization of different biomolecules on individual microrings within a sensor array. The combination of photonic and electrochemical characterization also provides additional quantitative information and unique insight into chemical reactivity that is unavailable with photonic detection alone. By exploiting both the photonic and the electrical properties of silicon, the sensor opens new modalities for sensing on the microscale.
Original languageEnglish
Article number12769
JournalNature Communications
Volume7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14 Sept 2016

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • Biosensors
  • micro-optics
  • microresonators
  • sensors and biosensors

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