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Liquid-infiltrated photonic crystals: enhanced light-matter interactions for lab-on-a-chip applications

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Abstract

Optical techniques are finding widespread use in analytical chemistry for chemical and bio-chemical analysis. During the past decade, there has been an increasing emphasis on miniaturization of chemical analysis systems and naturally this has stimulated a large effort in integrating microfluidics and optics in lab-on-a-chip microsystems. This development is partly defining the emerging field of optofluidics. Scaling analysis and experiments have demonstrated the advantage of micro-scale devices over their macroscopic counterparts for a number of chemical applications. However, from an optical point of view, miniaturized devices suffer dramatically from the reduced optical path compared to macroscale experiments, e.g. in a cuvette. Obviously, the reduced optical path complicates the application of optical techniques in lab-on-a-chip systems. In this paper we theoretically discuss how a strongly dispersive photonic crystal environment may be used to enhance the light-matter interactions, thus potentially compensating for the reduced optical path in lab-on-a-chip systems. Combining electromagnetic perturbation theory with full-wave electromagnetic simulations we address the prospects for achieving slow-light enhancement of Beer–Lambert–Bouguer absorption, photonic band-gap based refractometry, and high-Q cavity sensing.

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Acknowledgments

We thank A. Kristensen, M. Gersborg-Hansen, J. P. Kutter, K. B. Mogensen, H. Bruus, and J. Lægsgaard for discussions. This work is financially supported by the Danish Council for Strategic Research through the Strategic Program for Young Researchers (grant no: 2117-05-0037).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MIC, Department of Micro and Nanotechnology, NanoDTU, Technical University of Denmark, Ørsteds Plads, DTU-building 345 East, 2800, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Niels Asger Mortensen, Sanshui Xiao & Jesper Pedersen

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  1. Niels Asger Mortensen
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  2. Sanshui Xiao
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  3. Jesper Pedersen
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Correspondence to Niels Asger Mortensen.

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Invited paper for the “Optofluidics” special issue edited by Prof. David Erickson.

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Mortensen, N.A., Xiao, S. & Pedersen, J. Liquid-infiltrated photonic crystals: enhanced light-matter interactions for lab-on-a-chip applications. Microfluid Nanofluid 4, 117–127 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-007-0203-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-007-0203-2

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