Photoinduced absorption measurement on a microchip equipped with organic dye-doped polymer waveguide

Abstract

We have fabricated a waveguide-type optical sensing microchip and succeeded in on-chip photoinduced absorption (PIA) spectroscopy. The PIA microchip was fabricated with a conventional photolithographic technique and consisted of plastic optical waveguides and microfluidic channels. Furthermore, a serially-cascaded polymer waveguide doped with organic dyes was integrated on this microchip, which was fabricated using a self-written waveguide process. This dye-doped waveguide was pumped by a UV light emitting diode (UV-LED) and used as a probe light source with a broad emission spectrum. At the same time, a solution of test material in the microfluidic channel was synchronously pumped by a UV-LED or UV laser diode. Since the transmission spectrum of the photo-excited test material could be measured, the PIA spectra were obtained easily. In this study, we have demonstrated the on-chip PIA measurements for two classes of test materials, rare-earth complex and chlorophyll molecules. In the measurement for the aqueous solution of Neodymium (III) acetate hydrate, PIA signals attributed to the 4 f -4 f transition was observed. Furthermore, by varying the modulation frequency of the pulsed optical pumping, lifetime analysis of the excited 4 f states was achieved. In the measurements for the ethanol solutions of chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b, PIA signals were observed at the wavelength near the Q-band absorption peaks. These spectra were very similar to the well-known feature for the photosystem II protein complex observed in a conventional PIA system. From these results, it is expected that the onchip PIA measurement technique is applicable to the transient analyses for the material systems with photoexcited charge transfer.