This project is an excellent opportunity to join the world-leading Photonics Group at York in the context of large collaborative project with other UK universities. You would be involved in the research and development of novel photonic and microfluidic devices for an advanced blood analysis system. The system will operate in the mid-infrared (MIR) wavelength (3-15 um) region and will be used to identify a wide range of biological and chemical molecules; this is the so-called “molecular fingerprint region”. In the molecular world, these spectroscopic fingerprints are associated with the stretching, vibration and rotation of the molecules and are unique to each specific chemical [1]. The currently available MIR devices are realised in bulk optics, which significantly limits their use outside the laboratory [2]. Here, we aim to develop low-cost, high performance, silicon photonics chip-scale sensors operating in the MIR wavelength region [3]. By extending the technical capability of Silicon Photonics to MIR wavelengths, we will change the way that healthcare (e.g. therapeutic drugs, cancer, poisoning, infections), and environmental (trace gas analysis, climate induced changes, water pollution) monitoring are performed.
The project is part of a five-year EPSRC funded Programme Grant with a highly multidisciplinary team. We will work closely with research leaders from the Universities of Southampton, Sheffield, the University Hospital Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre. In year 1, you will learn the relevant nanofabrication techniques and the fluidic delivery methods, and identify the promising integration routes; in year 2, you will build proof-of-concept demonstrators to analyse drugs and proteins in blood samples; in years 3-3.5, you will focus on the most promising applications and optimise the on-chip sensing performance, as well as writing up your thesis.
[1] “Field-resolved infrared spectroscopy of biological systems”, Nature 577, 52–59 (2020);
[2] “The Next Generation of IR Spectroscopy: EC-QCL-Based Mid-IR Transmission Spectroscopy of Proteins with Balanced Detection”, Anal. Chem. 92, 14 (2020);
[3] Richard Soref, “Mid-infrared photonics in silicon and germanium,” Nature Photonics, 4, 495-497 (2010)
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