| AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| MEMS and NEMS | Monday Sessions |
| Session MN-MoA |
| Session: | Multi-scale Interactions of Materials and Fabrication at the Micro- and Nano-scale |
| Presenter: | X. Fan, University of Maryland |
| Authors: | X. Fan, University of Maryland N. Siwak, University of Maryland A. Brown, University of Maryland J. Culver, University of Maryland R. Ghodssi, University of Maryland |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Nanoscale technologies have the potential to revolutionize a broad range of fields. Already, there have been a plethora of synthesis and fabrication techniques of nanostructures and devices utilizing both organic and inorganic materials. Biological molecules have transformed chem-bio detection, due to their innate ability to be tailored and engineered via genetics. These nanostructures can be versatile in their various binding properties making them attractive for a variety of applications. These biomolecules, often self-assembled or synthesized with a bottom-up approach, are used for scaffolding and functionalization purposes, while inorganic materials utilize conventional top-down lithographic techniques to pattern transducers. The integration of these two different technologies is challenging due to fabrication incompatibility. While inorganic materials are robust, biomolecules are highly sensitive to pH levels, temperature, and chemical compositions, making them incompatible with top-down techniques. Thus, their integration is often withheld until the final step of device fabrication. This prevents further backend processing once the biomolecules have been deposited, limiting the degree of integration of nanoscale platforms and restricting the full potential of nanotechnology.
Our team has developed a method to pattern a type of nano-biomolecules onto the active region of a photonic device using a hybrid top-down and bottom-up approach. An optical ring resonator, highly sensitive to refractive index changes, was fabricated using E-beam lithography to investigate the assembly of biomolecules on its surface. Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) was then self-assembled onto the transducer’s active area. TMV is a rod like structure with coat proteins that are genetically modified to allow for the self-assembly of viruses onto surfaces and the expression of functionalization on the outer surface. The TMV structure is stable in a pH 2-11 and temperature up to 60oC that survives the conventional lift-off patterning process. This enables the patterning and alignment of biologically functionalized structures on lithographically fabricated transducers post self-assembly.
By integrating TMV structures onto the surface of the ring resonator, we will report on the optical properties of the TMV assembly, including its refractive index and optical loss, for sensing applications. This photonic platform with patterned TMV provides a compatible process to integrate biological nanostructures with conventionally fabricated transducers. This integration scheme we have developed will allow for an additional degree of control when developing nanoscale based hybrid platforms.