title: Nanofluidic tuning of photonic crystal circuits.
abstract: By integrating soft-lithography-based nanofluidics with silicon nanophotonics, we demonstrate dynamic, liquid-based addressing and high deltan/n (approximately 0.1) refractive index modulation of individual features within photonic structures at subwavelength length scales. We show ultracompact tunable spectral filtering through nanofluidic targeting of a single row of holes within a planar photonic crystal. We accomplished this with an optofluidic integration architecture comprising a nanophotonic layer, a nanofluidic delivery structure, and a microfluidic control engine. Variants of this technique could enable dynamic reconfiguration of photonic circuits, selective introduction of optical nonlinearities, or delivery of single molecules into resonant cavities for biodetection.
authors.affiliation: Center for Optofluidic Integration, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Erickson
authors.forename: Troy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Rockwood
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Emery
authors.forename: Axel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Scherer
authors.forename: Demetri
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Psaltis