Biosensor chips for diagnostics

Imec and Genalyte have produced a set of disposable silicon photonics biosensor chips to be used in diagnostic and molecular detection equipment.

The chips combine Imec’s standard silicon photonic waveguide devices with biocompatible modifications jointly developed by Imec and Genalyte.

The chips allow high levels of multiplexed biosensing due to the high integration level of Si photonics.

The chips were made as part of Imec’s silicon photonics CMORE service. A bio-compatible passivation technology was developed on a 200 mm waferscale and the chips were tested in the field. They contain up to 128 proprietary ring resonator sensors coated with application-specific chemistry to create very sensitive molecular detection capability.

On-chip grating couplers are used to couple the infrared light from and to Genalyte’s diagnostic equipment.

The silicon photonics platform allows miniaturisation of complex photonic functions on a single chip and a dense integration of photonics and electronics.

The ability to use standard microelectronic CMOS manufacturing facilities and processes for optical functions makes silicon photonics commercially attractive because of the potential to lower manufacturing costs and increased volume production.

The quality and reproducibility of the photonic waveguides and devices with features measuring 100-500 nm requiring nm-scale accuracy are the keys to high yield.