Multi-color flow cytometer with PIC-based structured illumination.

We demonstrate a flow cytometer in which structured light illumination is used to attribute fluorescent and scattering signals to their excitation wavelength. A suitable multi-color light source emitting structured illumination patterns at 405, 488, 561 and 640 nm is developed based on a silicon nitride photonic integrated circuit and cytometry experiments are conducted with calibration beads. Performance metrics of the novel cytometer are compared with those of a mature, commercial device.

Silicon nitride PIC-based multi-color laser engines for life science applications.

We implement a multi-color laser engine with silicon nitride photonic integrated circuit technology, that combines four fluorophore excitation wavelengths (405 nm, 488 nm, 561 nm, 640 nm) and splits them with variable attenuation among two output fibers used for different microscope imaging modalities. With the help of photonic integrated circuit technology, the volume of the multi-color laser engine's optics is reduced by two orders of magnitude compared to its commercially available discrete optics counterpart. Light multiplexing is implemented by means of a directional coupler based device and variable optical attenuation as well as fiber switching with thermally actuated Mach-Zehnder interferometers.