We demonstrate the capabilities of the SiPhox Home platform to measure blood biomarker concentrations such as a highsensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) assay. The system consists of disposable biosensor cartridges which plug into a compact reader instrument. The reader contains a miniature low-cost swept-source laser and detection system which is designed to interrogate on-chip resonant or interferometric sensors, and we demonstrate excellent performance of manufactured readers compared to a gold-standard laboratory tunable laser. The cartridge includes a silicon photonics chip with 15 individually addressable microring resonator sensors which transduce molecular binding into a wavelength shift measured by the reader. We demonstrate both labeled and label-free ring resonator immunoassays running on our platform which can measure the relevant hsCRP concentration range of 0.2 – 10 μg/mL. In a preliminary method comparison study, 7 volunteers measured their hsCRP values at home by two methods: SiPhox Home, which displays results after only a 4-minute run time, and a commercially available mail-in blood test, which typically returns results in 3-5 business days. The results show a good correlation and demonstrate the potential for high-quality at-home measurement of blood biomarkers using manufacturable silicon photonics technology.
Photonics is an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor, as technologies and techniques invented or developed in one
scientific field are often found to be applicable to other fields or disciplines. We present two case studies in which
optical spectroscopy technologies originating from stellar astrophysics and optical telecommunications multiplexing
have been successfully adapted for biomedical applications. The first case involves a design concept called the High
Throughput Virtual Slit, or HTVS, which provides high spectral resolution without the throughput inefficiency typically
associated with a narrow spectrometer slit. HTVS-enhanced spectrometers have been found to significantly improve the
sensitivity and speed of fiber-fed Raman analysis systems, and the method is now being adapted for hyperspectral
imaging for medical and biological sensing. The second example of technology transfer into biomedicine centers on
integrated optics, in which optical waveguides are fabricated on to silicon substrates in a substantially similar fashion as
integrated circuits in computer chips. We describe an architecture referred to as OCTANE which implements a small and
robust "spectrometer-on-a-chip” which is optimized for optical coherence tomography (OCT). OCTANE-based OCT
systems deliver three-dimensional imaging resolution at the micron scale with greater stability and lower cost than
equivalent conventional OCT approaches. Both HTVS and OCTANE enable higher precision and improved reliability
under environmental conditions that are typically found in a clinical or laboratory setting.
Tornado Spectral Systems has developed a new chip-based spectrometer called OCTANE, the Optical Coherence Tomography Advanced Nanophotonic Engine, built using a planar lightwave circuit with integrated waveguides fabricated on a silicon wafer. While designed for spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) systems, the same miniaturized technology can be applied to many other spectroscopic applications. The field of integrated optics enables the design of complex optical systems which are monolithically integrated on silicon chips. The form factors of these systems can be significantly smaller, more robust and less expensive than their equivalent free-space counterparts. Fabrication techniques and material systems developed for microelectronics have previously been adapted for integrated optics in the telecom industry, where millions of chip-based components are used to power the optical backbone of the internet. We have further adapted the photonic technology platform for spectroscopy applications, allowing unheard-of economies of scale for these types of optical devices. Instead of changing lenses and aligning systems, these devices are accurately designed programmatically and are easily customized for specific applications. Spectrometers using integrated optics have large advantages in systems where size, robustness and cost matter: field-deployable devices, UAVs, UUVs, satellites, handheld scanning and more. We will discuss the performance characteristics of our chip-based spectrometers and the type of spectral sensing applications enabled by this technology.
Tornado Spectral Systems has developed a new spectrometer called OCTANE, the Optical Coherence Tomography
Advanced Nanophotonic Engine, consisting of chip-based spectrometers for spectral domain optical coherence
tomography (SD-OCT) systems. These devices include planar lightwave circuits with integrated waveguides fabricated
on a planar silicon substrate. Our commercial prototypes include a NIR system centered at a wavelength of 860 nm, a
spectral bandwidth of 70 nm, and 2048 output channels to record TE and TM polarizations independently at an 80 kHz
line scan rate. Intended to support low-cost, high-volume applications, these spectrometers are well-suited to SD-OCT
for both biological and industrial non-destructive testing applications.
We introduce a multi-layer silicon photonic microring resonator filter, fabricated using deposited materials, and transmit
up to 12.5-Gb/s error-free data, establishing a novel class of high-performance silicon photonics for advanced photonic
NoCs. Furthermore, by leveraging deposited materials, we propose a novel fully-integrated scalable photonic switch
architecture for data center networks, sustaining nonblocking 256×256 port size with nanosecond-scale switching times,
interconnecting 2,560 server racks with 51.2-Tb/s bisection bandwidth.
We summarize our recent work on integrated silicon photonics for applications in on-chip optical interconnects and
telecommunications, including high performance germanium detectors and a multi-channel receiver, a compact and low
power on-chip photonic link, an integrated diplexer and a coherent receiver.
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