Photonics and plasmonics for life science applications

In the Life Science Technology department at Imec Belgium, we develop solutions for future cost-effective and reliable healthcare. We work on platforms to advance life sciences and on wearable sensors for monitoring and diagnostics. We build next-generation platforms that allow intelligent, high-content screening and culturing of cells and biomolecules. Platforms to support pharmaceutical research, but also to serve as the basis for future applications for diagnosis and long-term therapy. At the heart of these systems are bio-nano interfaces. Interfaces between biological material and electronics that allow a fine-grained two-way communication.

An important part of our research involves the development of a CMOS compatible biophotonics platform based on SiN nanophotonic waveguides.[1] I will discuss experimental demonstration of strip waveguides, MMI and evanescent couplers, fractal trees for power distribution and AWGs and waveguide-integrated resonators as wavelength selective components. Additionally, we investigate light-matter interactions mediated by nanoscale confinement in plasmonic resonators. These are nanosized metallic antennas that convert electromagnetic waves at optical frequencies into localized fields, providing an effective route to couple photons in and out of nanoscale volumes. This unique ability makes these nanostructures excellent tools to study and manipulate light-matter interaction at the nanoscale. I will give an overview of our research on mapping of the magnetic near-field of plasmonic antennas using aperture scanning near-field optical microscopy (aperture-SNOM), [2,3] unidirectional scattering and emission of light by plasmonic antennas, [4] Fano and subradiant resonances for refractive index sensing, [5,6] and give some examples of specially designed plasmonic SERS substrates.[7-9]