Invention:
This invention proposes an approach to biosensing by monolithically integrating plasmonic elements with Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) sensors within a single CMOS foundry process. Utilizing the Back-End-Of-the-Line (BEOL) metal layers in a standard CMOS chip and exposing part or all of these metallic structures to introduce biomolecules, the design leverages nanophotonic resonances, such as propagating and localized surface plasmon resonances (SPR and LSPR), for highly sensitive bio-detection.
This invention addresses several significant challenges in the realm of biosensing, particularly in photonic-based biosensors. It reduces fabrication costs and steps and eliminates the alignment requirements between the photonic components and the electronic elements, the CMOS detector. As both are incorporated on a single chip, this design is notably cost-effective and devoid of alignment challenges, making it suitable for point-of-care biosensing, a domain primarily dominated by lateral flow assays. Secondly, the use of electronic integrated circuit foundries in the fabrication process allows for the introduction of dielectrophoresis.
Background:
This invention overcomes some of the major problems in biosensing in general, and in photonic based biosensing in particular. It allows for point of care biosensing which is typically reserved for lateral flow assays. Moreover, it opens the door for extreme sensitivity biosensing which is necessary in many cases, for instance, detecting cancer antigens right after procedures where the antigen concentration is low. In addition, it overcomes the lack of multiplexing in plasmonic sensors, which remained to date a problem with these sensors.
Applications:
- Biotechnology
- Biosensors
- Point-of-care healthcare
- Consumer technologies
Advantages:
- Cost effective design and fabrication
- Requires less biomaterial for measurements
- High sensitivity
- Doesn’t require alignment between multiple components
