No abstract

In the past few years optical ring resonators have emerged as a new sensing technology for highly sensitive detection of analytes in liquid or gas. This article introduces the ring resonator sensing principle, describes various ring resonator sensor designs, reviews the current state of the field, and presents an outlook of possible applications and related research and development directions.

Optofluidic dye lasers hold great promise for adaptive photonic devices, compact and wavelength-tunable light sources, and micro total analysis systems. To date, however, nearly all those lasers are directly excited by tuning the pump laser into the gain medium absorption band. Here we demonstrate bioinspired optofluidic dye lasers excited by FRET, in which the donor-acceptor distance, ratio, and spatial configuration can be precisely controlled by DNA scaffolds. The characteristics of the FRET lasers such as spectrum, threshold, and energy conversion efficiency are reported. Through DNA scaffolds, nearly 100% energy transfer can be maintained regardless of the donor and acceptor concentration. As a result, efficient FRET lasing is achieved at an unusually low acceptor concentration of micromolar, over 1,000 times lower than that in conventional optofluidic dye lasers. The lasing threshold is on the order of μJ∕mm 2 . Various DNA scaffold FRET lasers are demonstrated to illustrate vast possibilities in optofluidic laser designs. Our work opens a door to many researches and applications such as intracavity bio/chemical sensing, biocontrolled photonic devices, and biophysics. O ptofluidic lasers are an emerging technology that combines the advantages of compactness and easy liquid manipulation of microfluidics, and dynamic wavelength tunability and broad spectral coverage of dye lasers (1-3). Optical feedback in those optofluidic lasers has been achieved using high-Q ring resonators [e.g., microdroplets (4, 5), microspheres (6), microcylinders (7), microcapillaries (8, 9), and microfiber knots (10)], Fabry-Pérot cavities (11, 12), and distributed feedback gratings (3, 13). In nearly all those lasers, the gain medium is directly excited by tuning the pump laser into the dye absorption band, which requires that the pump laser wavelength match the particular dye absorption. An alternative excitation scheme is through energy transfer, in which dye mixtures, composed of the donor and the acceptor, are used. Donors are directly excited and subsequently transfer energy to acceptors for lasing. The energy transfer significantly extends the laser emission wavelength range without the need to change the pump wavelength. Moreover, dye lasers based on energy transfer have a much higher pump efficiency and lower lasing threshold than the corresponding single dye lasers due to the low donor absorption loss at the acceptor lasing wavelength (14, 15).Generally, there are two transfer mechanisms between the donor and the acceptor in an optical cavity: nonradiative FRET (14-17), in which the transfer is mediated by short-ranged resonant dipole-dipole interaction, and cavity-assisted radiative transfer (18)(19)(20), in which the emission from the donor is first coupled into the cavity, which stores photons for an extended amount of time before they are reabsorbed by the acceptor. The FRET efficiency between a donor and acceptor pair is R 0 6 ∕ðR 0 6 þ r 6 Þ, where R 0 and r are the Förster distance and the donor-acceptor distance, r...

Cells must continuously repair inevitable DNA damage while avoiding the deleterious consequences of imprecise repair. Distinction between legitimate and illegitimate repair processes is thought to be achieved in part through differential recognition and processing of specific noncanonical DNA structures, although the mechanistic basis of discrimination remains poorly defined. Here, we show that Escherichia coli RecQ, a central DNA recombination and repair enzyme, exhibits differential processing of DNA substrates based on their geometry and structure. Through single-molecule and ensemble biophysical experiments, we elucidate how the conserved domain architecture of RecQ supports geometry-dependent shuttling and directed processing of recombination-intermediate [displacement loop (D-loop)] substrates. Our study shows that these activities together suppress illegitimate recombination in vivo, whereas unregulated duplex unwinding is detrimental for recombination precision. Based on these results, we propose a mechanism through which RecQ helicases achieve recombination precision and efficiency.RecQ | helicase | magnetic tweezers | single molecule | DNA unwinding

We achieved optofluidic protein lasing using genetically encoded fluorescent protein FRET pairs linked by length-tunable peptides. Up to 25-fold reduction in the donor laser emission was observed when the donor and the acceptor were brought to close proximity, as compared to only 17% reduction in the donor emission using the conventional FRET detection. Our work opens a door to a broad range of applications in studying protein-protein interactions and protein-drug interactions.

We developed a novel on-column micro gas chromatography (microGC) detector using capillary based optical ring resonators (CBORRs). The CBORR is a thin-walled fused silica capillary with an inner diameter ranging from a few tens to a few hundreds of micrometers. The interior surface of the CBORR is coated with a layer of stationary phase for gas separation. The circular cross section of the CBORR forms a ring resonator and supports whispering gallery modes (WGMs) that circulate along the ring resonator circumference hundreds of times. The evanescent field extends into the core and is sensitive to the refractive index change induced by the interaction between the gas sample and the stationary phase. The WGM can be excited and monitored at any location along the CBORR by placing a tapered optical fiber against the CBORR, thus enabling on-column real-time detection. Rapid separation of both polar and nonpolar samples was demonstrated with subsecond detection speed. Theoretical work was also established to explain the CBORR detection mechanism. While low-nanogram detection limits are observed in these preliminary tests, many methods for improvements are under investigation. The CBORR is directly compatible with traditional capillary GC columns without any dead volumes. Therefore, the CBORR-based muGC is a very promising technology platform for rapid, sensitive, and portable analytical devices.

We achieve optofluidic lasers with a single molecular layer of gain, in which green fluorescent protein, dye-labeled bovine serum albumin, and dye-labeled DNA are respectively used as the gain medium and attached to the surface of a ring resonator via surface immobilization biochemical methods. It is estimated that the surface density of the gain molecules is on the order of 1012/cm2, sufficient for lasing under pulsed optical excitation. It is further shown that the optofluidic laser can be tuned by energy transfer mechanisms through biomolecular interactions. This work not only opens a door to novel photonic devices that can be controlled at the level of a single molecular layer, but also provides a promising sensing platform to analyze biochemical processes at the solid-liquid interface.

We carry out simulations based on a four-layer Mie model to systematically analyze the sensing performance of ring resonator chemical vapor sensors. Two sensor configurations are investigated, in which a polymer layer is coated on either interior or exterior surface of a fused silica cylindrical ring resonator. Upon the interaction of the polymer and the vapor analyte, the refractive index (RI) and the thickness of the polymer layer change, leading to a spectral shift in the resonant modes that are supported by the ring resonator. The RI sensitivity and thickness sensitivity are studied as a function of the polymer coating thickness and RI, the ring resonator size and wall thickness, and resonant mode order and polarization. Similarities and differences between the two sensor configurations are also discussed. Our work should provide a general guidance in development of sensitive ring resonator chemical vapor sensors.