Integration of femtosecond laser written optical waveguides in a lab-on-chip.
We use direct femtosecond laser writing to integrate optical waveguides into a commercial fused silica lab-on-chip (LOC). We fabricate high quality waveguides intersecting the microfluidic channels and use them to optically address with high spatial selectivity their content. Fluorescence from the photoexcited volume is efficiently collected at a 90 degrees angle by a high numerical aperture fiber, resulting in a compact and portable setup. Our approach is quite powerful because it allows the integration of photonic functionalities, by simple post-processing, into commercial LOCs, fabricated with standard techniques. By taking advantage of the unique three-dimensional capabilities of femtosecond laser writing, more complex functionalities, such as splitters or Mach-Zehnder interferometers, can be implemented.
Vazquez
Rebeca Martinez
RM
Istituto di Fotonica e Nanotecnologie-CNR, Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy.
Osellame
Roberto
R
Nolli
Daniela
D
Dongre
Chaitanya
C
van den Vlekkert
Hans
H
Ramponi
Roberta
R
Pollnau
Markus
M
Cerullo
Giulio
G
D005453:Fluorescence; D007834:Lasers; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000295:instrumentation*