title: Optical slot-waveguide based biochemical sensors.
abstract: Slot-waveguides allow light to be guided and strongly confined inside a nanometer-scale region of low refractive index. Thus stronger light-analyte interaction can be obtained as compared to that achievable by a conventional waveguide, in which the propagating beam is confined to the high-refractive-index core of the waveguide. In addition, slot-waveguides can be fabricated by employing CMOS compatible materials and technology, enabling miniaturization, integration with electronic, photonic and fluidic components in a chip, and mass production. These advantages have made the use of slot-waveguides for highly sensitive biochemical optical integrated sensors an emerging field. In this paper, recent achievements in slot-waveguide based biochemical sensing will be reviewed. These include slot-waveguide ring resonator based refractometric label-free biosensors, label-based optical sensing, and nano-opto-mechanical sensors.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Sistemas Optoelectrónicos y Microtecnología (ISOM), ETSI Telecomunicación, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain; E-Mail:  carlos.angulo.barrios@upm.es ; Tel.: +34 91 5495700;
authors.forename: Carlos Angulo
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Barrios