Rapid and sensitive detection of viral nucleic acids using silicon microchips.

Clinical laboratory-based nucleic acid amplification tests (NAT) play an important role in diagnosing viral infections. However, laboratory infrastructure requirements and their failure to diagnose at the point-of-need (PON) limit their clinical utility in both resource-rich and -limited clinical settings. The development of fast and sensitive PON viral NAT may overcome these limitations.

Angled-MMI-based wavelength splitters on silicon nitride waveguide platforms for fluorescence sensing.

Compact wavelength splitters based on angled multimode interferometers (AMMIs) on silicon nitride platforms working in visible lights are reported for fluorescence sensing applications. A diplexer and triplexer with different footprints are designed and experimentally demonstrated. The diplexer and triplexer have the insertion loss of ∼1.

Observation of nanoscale adhesion, friction and wear between ALD Al2O3 coated silicon MEMS sidewalls.

We report a novel investigation of the tribological properties of aluminum oxide (Al2O3) when it is used as protective coating on the sidewalls of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). By using an in-house built optical displacement measurement system, we were able to measure the on-chip displacements with an unprecedented resolution of 2 nm. This corresponds to 2 nN and 9 nN force resolution, respectively, depending on whether an adhesion or a friction sensor MEMS device was used for the measurement.