Microfluidic chip having on-chip electrically tunable high-throughput nanophotonic trap

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9433941-B2
Application number	US-201314654839-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 23, 2013
Priority date	Dec 21, 2012
Publication date	Sep 6, 2016
Grant date	Sep 6, 2016

Abstract

In one implementation, a microfluidic device based on optical trapping of particles is disclosed to include a substrate structured to include a fluidic channel which can carry a fluid having particles; and an optical waveguide loop formed on the substrate to include one or more waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel, an input optical port for the optical waveguide to receive an input optical beam, and an optical power splitter coupled to the optical waveguide loop to split the received input optical beam into two counter-propagating optical beams that prorogate in the optical waveguide loop in opposite directions and interfere with each other to form standing optical waves in at least the one or more waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel to optically trap particles at or near a surface of the one or more waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel. This device further includes an electrically controllable phase control device formed on the substrate and coupled to a location of the optical waveguide loop and operable to control an optical delay experienced by guided light at the coupled location, wherein the electrically controllable phase control device is configured to respond to an electrical control signal to adjust an amount of the optical delay at the coupled location to cause a shift in locations of nodes of each optical standing wave to change trapping locations of the trapped particles in the fluidic channel.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A microfluidic device based on optical trapping of particles, comprising:
a substrate structured to include a fluidic channel which can carry a fluid having particles;
an optical waveguide loop formed on the substrate to include one or more waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel, an input optical port for the optical waveguide to receive an input optical beam, and an optical power splitter coupled to the optical waveguide loop to split the received input optical beam into two counter-propagating optical beams that prorogate in the optical waveguide loop in opposite directions and interfere with each other to form standing optical waves in at least the one or more waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel to optically trap particles at or near a surface of the one or more waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel; and
an electrically controllable phase control device formed on the substrate and coupled to a location of the optical waveguide loop and operable to control an optical delay experienced by guided light at the coupled location, wherein the electrically controllable phase control device is configured to respond to an electrical control signal to adjust an amount of the optical delay at the coupled location to cause a shift in locations of nodes of each optical standing wave to change trapping locations of the trapped particles in the fluidic channel.

2. The device as in claim 1 , comprising:
a circuit formed on the substrate and coupled to the electrically controllable phase control device to supply the electrical control signal.

3. The device as in claim 1 , comprising:
a light source on the substrate that produces the input optical beam.

4. The device as in claim 1 , wherein:
the optical waveguide loop includes two waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel to optically trap particles at or near a surface of the one or more waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel.

5. The device as in claim 4 , wherein:
the two waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel are close to each other in a way to enable to trap two particles that are coupled to each other, where one particle is trapped in one of the two waveguides and the other particle is trapped in another one of the two waveguides.

6. The device as in claim 5 , wherein:
the two particles that are coupled to each other are coupled by a molecular bond.

7. The device as in claim 5 , wherein:
the two particles that are coupled to each other are coupled by a DNA.

8. The device as in claim 4 , wherein:
the two waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel are close to each other and are parallel to each other.

9. The device as in claim 4 , in addition to the electrically controllable phase control device formed on the substrate and coupled to the optical waveguide loop, further comprising:
a second electrically controllable phase control device formed on the substrate and coupled to control a phase of light in a first of the two waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel; and
a third electrically controllable phase control device formed on the substrate and coupled to control a phase of light in a second of the two waveguide sections that reside within the fluidic channel.

10. The device as in claim 9 , wherein:
one of the electrically controllable phase control devices includes a heater that heats up or cools down to change a phase.

11. The device as in claim 9 , wherein:
one of the electrically controllable phase control devices includes an electro-optic region that locally changes a refractive index to change a phase.

12. The device as in claim 1 , wherein:
the electrically controllable phase control device includes a heater that locally heats up or cools down the coupled location of the optical waveguide loop to change a refractive index in response to the electrical control signal.

13. The device as in claim 1 , wherein
the electrically controllable phase control device includes an electro-optic region that locally changes a refractive index in the coupled location of the optical waveguide loop in response to the electrical control signal.

14. The device as in claim 1 , wherein:
the substrate includes a substrate and a cladding layer formed over the substrate.

15. The device as in claim 1 , wherein:
the substrate includes a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) structure.

16. The device as in claim 1 , wherein:
the substrate includes a silicon nitride structure.

17. The device as in claim 1 , wherein:
the substrate includes a silicon oxide structure.

18. The device as in claim 1 , wherein:
the substrate includes materials and structures that are compatible with CMOS processing.

19. A microfluidic device based on optical trapping of particles, comprising:
a substrate structured to include a fluidic region which can contain a fluid having particles;
optical waveguides formed on the substrate to include (1) a first Mach-Zehnder interferometer that is located outside the fluidic region and receives an input laser beam and splits the received input laser beam into two laser beams along two different optical paths of the first Mach-Zehnder interferometer to produce a first optical beam; and (2) second Mach-Zehnder interferometers that are located inside the fluidic region and each receive a respective portion of light of the first optical beam output by the first Mach-Zehnder interferometer, wherein each second Mach-Zehnder Interferometer splits received light into two optical paths that are connected so that each optical path receives counter-propagating optical beams in opposite directions that interact with each other to form standing optical waves to optically trap particles;
a first electrically controllable phase control device formed on the substrate and coupled to a location of the first Mach-Zehnder interferometer and operable to control an optical delay between the two optical paths of the first Mach-Zehnder interferometer; and
second electrically controllable phase control devices formed on the substrate and coupled to the second Mach-Zehnder interferometers, respectively, each second electrically controllable phase control device operable to control an optical delay between the two optical paths of a respective second Mach-Zehnder interferometer.

20. The device as in claim 19 , wherein:
two adjacent second Mach-Zehnder interferometers have a first waveguide section from a first of the two adjacent second Mach-Zehnder interferometers and a second waveguide section from a second of the two adjacent second Mach-Zehnder interferometers, and the first and second waveguide sections reside within the fluidic region and are close to each other in a way to enable to trap two particles that are coupled to each other, where one particle of the two coupled particles is trapped in the first waveguide section and the other particle is trapped in the second waveguide section.

21. The device as in claim 20 , wherein:
the two particles that are coupled to each other are coupled by a molecular bond.

22. The device as in claim 20 , wherein:
the two particles that are coupled to each other are coupled by a DNA.

23. The device as in claim 19 , comprising:
a circuit formed on the substrate and coupled to control operations of the first and second electrically controllable phase control devices.

24. The device a

Assignees

• Univ Cornell

Inventors

• Wang Michelle D
• Lipson Michal
• Soltani Mohammad
• Lin Jun
• Saraf Summer N

Classifications

• Y10T436/25375

  Liberation or purification of sample or separation of material from a sample [e.g., filtering, centrifuging, etc.] · CPC title

• B82Y20/00

  Nanooptics, e.g. quantum optics or photonic crystals · CPC title

• B01L3/502761 Primary

  specially adapted for handling suspended solids or molecules independently from the bulk fluid flow, e.g. for trapping or sorting beads or physically stretching molecules · CPC title

• B01L2200/0668

  Trapping microscopic beads · CPC title

• G02B2006/12159

  Interferometer · CPC title