A monolithic optical sensor based on whispering-gallery modes in polystyrene microspheres

Abstract

Bloch surface waves-controlled fluorescence emission: Coupling into nanometer-sized polymeric waveguides APL: Org. Electron. Photonics 5, 39 (2012) Bloch surface waves-controlled fluorescence emission: Coupling into nanometer-sized polymeric waveguides Appl. Phys. Lett. 100, 063305 (2012) Identifying and evaluating organic nonlinear optical materials via molecular moments J. Appl. Phys. 111, 033512 (2012) Elastomeric silicone substrates for terahertz fishnet metamaterials Appl. Phys. Lett. 100, 061101 (2012) Functionalizing the rear scatterer in a luminescent solar concentrator J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 013103 (2012) Additional information on Appl. Phys. Lett.

All-polymer whispering gallery mode sensor for application in optofluidics

“…The next steps are to build an advanced uidic cell, validate the sensor for measurement of other physical quantities, and develop a suitable functionalization for biosensing applications. Moreover it might be necessary to change the xation layer material for measurements in aqueous environments, because the quality factor of the spheres is higher the better the refractive index of the layer is matched to the refractive index of water [18].…”

Taking detection to the limit with optical microcavities: Recent advances presented at the 560. WE Heraeus Seminar

“…The WGM resonance signal is typically acquired by swept-wavelength scanning of a tunable laser source: a computer controlled external cavity diode laser is scanned, for example every millisecond, to acquire the spectral response of the sphere and determine its resonance frequency, linewidth and amplitude by computer based fitting algorithms [31]. Evanescent field couplers are used to direct the light into the microsphere and excite WGM, examples are prism couplers [7,32,33] and taper and waveguide couplers [3,[34][35][36][37][38]. More recently also free space coupled microcavities have been explored in biosensing, which require no coupling device and open up interesting nanoparticle sensing applications by monitoring linewidth change [16].…”

Optical Tracking of Anomalous Diffusion Kinetics in Polymer Microspheres

“…While the high Q factors of these surface-type modes provide a sensitive method of studying diffusion kinetics or sensing of volatiles, this work also provides a, hitherto lacking, quantitative description of the degradation and swelling processes affecting polymer biosensors, which are invariably used in aqueous environments [5,7]. We primarily concern ourselves with polymer-penetrant systems suffering relatively small physical changes from penetrant diffusion, as may result from, for example, low penetrant solubility, slow dissolution rates, and small molar volume.…”

“…Diffusion in polymers is a complex process, the understanding of which can bring great benefit to, for example, design of polymer membranes, microfluidics, fuel cells, controlled drug delivery systems, and sensors [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Fundamentally, many physical principles can influence the diffusion kinetics, such that differing diffusion regimes have been observed ranging from so-called Fickian (case I) diffusion, in which the rate of penetrant diffusion dominates the kinetics, through anomalous diffusion, to non-Fickian (case II) diffusion governed by polymer relaxation [8,9].…”