Low loss CMOS-compatible PECVD silicon nitride waveguides and grating couplers for blue light optogenetic applications

This paper presents silicon nitride (SixNy) photonic integrated circuits (PICs) with high performance at a wavelength of 450 nm, which, therefore, is suitable for neuronal stimulation with optogenetics. These PICs consist of straight and bent waveguides, and grating couplers that are fabricated in a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition SixNy platform. Their characterization shows propagation losses of 0.96 +/- 0.4 dB/cm on average for straight waveguides that are 1-5 mu m wide and bend insertion losses as low as 0.2 dB/90. for 1 mu m wide waveguides with a radius of 100 mu m. Additionally, the grating coupler characterization shows that they can deliver about 10 mu W of light in an area of 5 x 9 mu m(2) (240 mW/mm(2)), which is captured from an uncollimated laser diode (70 mW). Besides delivering sufficient power for optogenetic applications, the gratings have dimensions that are comparable to the size of a neuron, which would allow single cell interaction. These results demonstrate that, with this SixNy platform, high-density and large-scale implantable neural devices can be fabricated and readily integrated into existing CMOS-compatible neuro-electronic platforms

研究解説 : Modelling and Optimisation of an Electromagnetic Bi-Stable optical μ Switch

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Radioimager Quantification of Oligonucleotide Hybridization with DNA Immobilized on Transfer Membrane: Application to the Identification of Related Sequences

International audienceThe radioimager scintillating optical fiber imager was used to quantify the hybridization parameters of a 35-mer oligonucleotide probe with target DNAs immobilized on transfer membranes. The amount of the immobilized target DNA remaining accessible to hybridization (Rt) was shown to be about 4% of the spotted DNA. The time course of the hybridization of a target DNA reacting with an excess of full-match probe exhibited a first-order kinetics, in which rate constant k was the highest for the hybridization temperature close to the calculated Tm. The effect of temperature on the hybridization kinetics of the probe sharing 37 to 100% identity with the immobilized target DNA was assessed: A significant fall of both the rate constant k and Rt values at the plateau was observed when the identity shared by the target DNA and the probe decreased from 100 to 71%. The highest k and Rt values were also obtained for temperatures closest to the calculated Tm. A good estimate of the degree of sequence identity may be calculated from the corresponding hybridization signals. Washing procedure did not improve the discrimination between related sequences, except for closely similar sequences. Practical conclusions for the detection of sequences belonging to gene families are presented

Low loss CMOS-compatible PECVD silicon nitride waveguides and grating couplers for blue light optogenetic applications

© 2009-2012 IEEE. This paper presents silicon nitride (SixNy) photonic integrated circuits (PICs) with high performance at a wavelength of 450 nm, which, therefore, is suitable for neuronal stimulation with optogenetics. These PICs consist of straight and bent waveguides, and grating couplers that are fabricated in a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition SixNy platform. Their characterization shows propagation losses of 0.96 $\pm$ 0.4 dB/cm on average for straight waveguides that are 1-5 $\mu$m wide and bend insertion losses as low as 0.2 dB/90 $^\circ$ for 1 $\mu$m wide waveguides with a radius of 100 $\mu$m. Additionally, the grating coupler characterization shows that they can deliver about 10 $\mu$W of light in an area of 5 $\times$ 9 $\mu$m2 (240 mW/mm2), which is captured from an uncollimated laser diode (70 mW). Besides delivering sufficient power for optogenetic applications, the gratings have dimensions that are comparable to the size of a neuron, which would allow single cell interaction. These results demonstrate that, with this SixNy platform, high-density and large-scale implantable neural devices can be fabricated and readily integrated into existing CMOS-compatible neuro-electronic platforms.status: publishe