Miniaturized Si-based plasmonics platform for gas detection

有毒气体污染、《京都议定书》规定的国际义务以及化学（或生物）恐怖主义袭击的可能性对我们的社会构成了新的威胁，这些都使开发低成本、可靠和敏感的方法来有效评估大气中有害或潜在危险气体和蒸气的浓度成为当务之急。目前可用的气体检测技术包括红外吸收和化学反应传感器。然而，由于技术上的困难，到目前为止，这些方法还不能提供一种兼具高灵敏度、良好可靠性和成本效益的传感器装置。这项战略拨款提案旨在开发新的光子学方法，这可以提供这样的组合。本提案的方法是基于项目参与者最近与表面等离子体共振（SPR）转导相关的发现。特别是，我们在硅平台上展示了SPR效应，该平台使用Si作为耦合材料而不是传统SPR传感器中的玻璃。与玻璃相比，这种传感器提供了高灵敏度和更好的传感器小型化和集成化机会，利用了硅基微加工方法的更好发展。此外，Si平台还具有一些优势，例如可以利用泵送波长接近不同气体吸收峰的光，以及不同的聚合物和薄的固体基气敏膜来生产SPR。该项目将考虑不同的si基SPR传感器配置，用于气体检测。这项研究的成功将是一项突破性的气体传感器技术，可以在现场廉价部署。该项目将由来自巴黎综合理工学院和女王大学的一组研究人员进行。潜在的应用将是环境安全，反生物恐怖主义和军事，这对国家安全和加拿大消费者至关重要

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