Miniaturized Si-based plasmonics platform for gas detection

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New threats to our society related to the pollution of toxic gases, international obligations under the Kyoto protocol, as well as the possibility of chemical (or bio-) terrorism attack, put to the forefront the development of low-cost, reliable, and sensitive methods for effective assessment of the concentration of hazardous or potentially dangerous gases and vapors in the atmosphere. Currently available technologies for gas detection include IR absorption and chemical reaction sensors. However, due to technological difficulties, up to now these approaches have not been able to provide a sensor device combining high sensitivity, good reliability and cost-efficiency. This Strategic Grant proposal is aimed at the development of novel photonics methodologies, which could provide such a combination. The approach of this proposal is based on recent findings of project participants related to Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) transduction. In particular, we demonstrated SPR effect on a silicon platform, which uses Si as a coupling material instead of glass in conventional SPR sensors. Such sensors offer high sensitivity and better opportunities for sensor miniaturization and integration, taking advantage of much better development of Si-based methods for microfabrication compared to glass. In addition, the Si platform offers advantages such as a possibility of SPR production using pumping light with wavelengths close to absorption peaks of different gases, as well as different polymer- and thin solid-based gas-sensitive films. The project will consider different Si-based SPR sensors configurations for gas detection. Success in the proposed research will be a breakthrough gas sensor technology that can be field-deployed cheaply. This project will be performed by a team of researchers from the Ecole Polytechnique and Queen's University. Potential applications will be environmental safety, counter-bioterrorism and military, which are vital for national security and Canadian consumers