Nanoscale optofluidic sensor arrays for Dengue virus detection

Abstract

Here we present our work towards the development of Nanoscale Optofluidic Sensor Arrays (NOSA), which is an optofluidic architecture for performing label free, highly parallel, detections of biomolecular interactions. The approach is based on the use of optically resonant devices whose resonant wavelength is shifted due to a local change in refractive index caused by a positive binding event between a surface bound molecule and it solution phase target. A special two stage micro-/nanofluidics architecture is used to first functionalize the devices and then to deliver the targets. Two variants of the NOSA will be presented here. The first approach utilizes a 1D resonant cavity in a 1D silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide with a unique differential size functionalization approach. This approach allows binding events at one or at a combination of the many sensing sites which causes a unique shift in the output resonator spectrum. The latter approach consists of a SOI waveguide evanescently coupled to multiple 1-D photonic crystal resonators of different sizes along the length, each of which is functionalized with a different oligonucleotide probe. These devices have an extremely low limit of detection and are compatible with aqueous environments. The primary advantage of these devices over existing technology is that it combines the sensitivity (limit of detection) of nanosensor technology with the parallelism of the microarray type format. Our initial application is in the detection of viral RNA of Dengue virus.