CSSTag: Optical Nanoscale Radar and Particle Tracking for In-Body and Microfluidic Systems With Vibrating Graphene and Resonance Energy Transfer

Abstract

Biological particle tracking systems monitor cellular processes or particle behaviors with the great accuracy. The emissions of fluorescent molecules or direct images of particles are captured with cameras or photodetectors. The current imaging systems have challenges in detection, collection, and analysis of imaging data, penetration depth, and complicated set-ups. In this paper, a signaling-based nanoscale acousto-optic radar and microfluidic multiple particle tracking (MPT) system is proposed based on the theoretical design providing nanoscale optical modulator with vibrating Förster resonance energy transfer and vibrating cadmium selenide/zinc sulfide quantum dots (QDs) on graphene resonators. The modulator combines significant advantages of graphene membranes having wideband resonance frequencies with QDs having broad absorption spectrum and tunable properties. The solution denoted by chirp spread spectrum(CSS) Tag utilizes classical radar target tracking approaches in nanoscale environments based on the capability to generate CSS sequences identifying different bio-particles. Monte Carlo simulations show significant performance for MPT with a modulator of dimension and several picograms of weight, the signal-to-noise ratio in the range from -7 to 10 dB, simple light emitting diode sources with power less than 4 W/cm and high speed tracking for microfluidic environments.

Theoretical Modeling of Viscosity Monitoring with Vibrating Resonance Energy Transfer for Point-of-Care and Environmental Monitoring Applications

“…In this article, a novel viscosity measurement system method is proposed based on vibrating Förster resonance energy transfer (VFRET) introduced in [11,12,13,14,15,16] by utilizing the acoustic vibration of donors inside a fluid medium and measuring optical emissions from nearby acceptor molecules. The vibration amplitude of donors with acoustic excitation inside the fluid medium depends on both the particle properties and viscosity of the fluid.…”

Graphene-Based Acousto-Optic Sensors with Vibrating Resonance Energy Transfer and Applications

“…Multi particle tracking (MPT) or single particle tracking (SPT) with labeling by observing fluorescent molecule emission are common tools for monitoring cellular processes for in-vivo nano-biological and in-vitro microfluidic systems [3,5]. Special fluorescing tags attached on molecules are tracked and digital image processing tools allow nanometer (nm) resolution in positioning.…”

“…Recently, a novel nanoscale acousto-optic radar and particle tracking system design using chirp spread spectrum (CSS) sequences with special geometrical design of acousto-optic transducers [5]. The design denoted with the name CSSTag promises signaling-based tagging in microfluidic environments by generating unique tags as shown in Figure 7.…”

“…Mechanical designs utilizing graphene achieve high-performance nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS) with large Young's modulus (1 TPa for single layer graphene), ultra-low weight, low residual stress and large breaking strength, i.e., graphene strain allowing 25% without breaking [1]. Unique optical, electrical, physical and mechanical properties of graphene allow the designed resonators to be utilized in challenging applications, e.g., strain sensor, mass sensor, nanogenerators, transducers, photodetectors and novel NEMS devices [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8].…”

“…Nanoscale photonic solutions with a novel design for sensing, energy harvesting or communication purposes are recently presented in [3][4][5]8] with significant performances and rich set of applications. They utilize unique and unexploited features of graphene and quantum dots (QDs) combined with a special mechanical design.…”