Abstract
In this paper technology to make optical waveguides and microfluidic channels integrated on the same substrate will be reported to envisage novel micro-optofluidic chips. PolyDiMethylSiloxane (PDMS) is used to make microchannels to be filled with biological solutions. Liquid crystals (LC) are used to confine light to produce optical interaction with biological fluidic specimen. Optical waveguides base on PDMS channels filled with LC, named LC:PDMS waveguides, including both straight and bending channels are reported to design photonic devices. Electro-optic effect of LC allows to make tuneable optical waveguides to reconfigure the entire optofluidic microsystem which can include gold nanoparticles for photo-thermal therapies. Coplanar gold electrodes can switch LC molecules with applied voltage of about 2 V. Such electrode configuration can be used to make optical switches and wavelengths demultiplexers. A zero-gap directional coupler based on LC:PDMS waveguides has been designed to switch light from one waveguide to another with an extinction ratio of 16 dB by applying a voltage of just 1.62 V. A multimode interference demultiplexer has been also designed to demultiplex wavelengths at 980 nm and 1550 nm in two output waveguides with an extinction ratio better than 11 dB by applying about 7 V.
Highlights
Both the variation in the diffraction pattern of an array of microfluidic channels acting as a switchable grating using ITO electrodes [3] and simple optical waveguides were experimentally demonstrated using Liquid crystals (LC) infiltrated in PDMS, named LC:PDMS waveguides
Optofluidic channels have been successfully proposed by infiltrating liquid crystals (LC) in silicon grooves [1] and in PolyDiMethylSiloxane (PDMS) [2]. Both the variation in the diffraction pattern of an array of microfluidic channels acting as a switchable grating using ITO electrodes [3] and simple optical waveguides were experimentally demonstrated using LC infiltrated in PDMS, named LC:PDMS waveguides
In this paper we present design of both straight and bending optical waveguides based on LC:PDMS
Summary
Both the variation in the diffraction pattern of an array of microfluidic channels acting as a switchable grating using ITO electrodes [3] and simple optical waveguides were experimentally demonstrated using LC infiltrated in PDMS, named LC:PDMS waveguides. In this paper we present design of both straight and bending optical waveguides based on LC:PDMS.
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