Switching of nanoparticles in large-scale hybrid electro-optofluidics integration.

Abstract

We numerically demonstrate the scheme of independent optofluidic switching of nanoparticles on a silicon-based lab-on-a-chip system, using an electronic logic activated ring-assisted Mach-Zehnder interferometer (RAMZI). By using the carrier injection method with a tiny refractive index change of 8.00×10^-4 to adjust the phase delay of a ring resonator sitting on one arm of the MZI, the light passing through could be switched to any output port of MZI followed by a directional coupler (DC). Meanwhile, the trapping force and scattering force of the guided lightwave could provide the actuation for sample delivery. Therefore, the switching logic of the guided mode is mapping to its loaded sample of nanomaterials. Our structure possesses high compactness, scalability, and time-effectiveness and, thereby, it is very appropriate for on-chip optical manipulation. The introduction of the RAMZI and cascaded RAMZIs in an optofluidic chip can form a scalable switching module with an independent electronic logic trigger signal, and make the chip dynamically configurable and scalable, which is very critical and opens a new horizon for the large-scale hybrid electro-optofluidics integration of a lab-on-a-chip system.