Modeling and Analysis of an Opto-Fluidic Sensor for Lab-on-a-Chip Applications

In this work modeling and analysis of an integrated opto-fluidic sensor, with a focus on achievement of single mode optical confinement and continuous flow of microparticles in the microfluidic channel for lab-on-a-chip (LOC) sensing application is presented. This sensor consists of integrated optical waveguides, microfluidic channel among other integrated optical components. A continuous flow of microparticles in a narrow fluidic channel is achieved by maintaining the two sealed chambers at different temperatures and by maintaining a constant pressure of 1 Pa at the centroid of narrow fluidic channel geometry. The analysis of silicon on insulator (SOI) integrated optical waveguide at an infrared wavelength of 1550 nm for single mode sensing operation is presented. The optical loss is found to be 5.7 × 10^-4 dB/cm with an effective index of 2.3. The model presented in this work can be effectively used to detect the nature of microparticles and continuous monitoring of pathological parameters for sensing applications.