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Invited Talk |
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Nanophotonics for Medical Diagnostics
Prof. Dr. Peter Seitz
Abstract
Optical methods are
the preferred measurement techniques for biosensors and lab-on-chip
applications. If combined properly with chemical detection processes,
high-performance biosensor systems result, which exhibit the key
properties for effective medical diagnostic instruments: High
sensitivity, selectivity and robustness. To simplify the systems and
their operation, it is desirable to employ label-free optical methods,
requiring the functionalization of interfaces. Evanescent
electromagnetic waves are probing the optical properties near the
interfaces, a few 100 nm deep into the sample fluid. The sensitivity of
the measurements can be improved with optical micro-resonators, in
particular whispering gallery mode devices. Q factors as high as 2x108
have been achieved in practice. The resulting narrow-linewidth
resonances and an unexpected thermo-optic effect make it possible to
detect single biomolecules using a label-free biosensor principle. It is
very important, though, to make sure that in these approaches the
biosensor’s selectivity does not suffer. Future generations of
biosensors and labs-on-chip for point-of-care applications will require
large numbers of parallel measurement channels, necessitating highly
parallel optical readout techniques.
Biography Peter Seitz received his M.Sc. degree in experimental physics in 1980 and his Ph.D. degree in 1984, both from ETH Zurich. From 1984 to 1987 he was a staff member of the RCA Research Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey and in Zurich. In 1987 he joined the Paul Scherrer Institute in Zurich, where he created and led the Image Sensing research group. Since 1997 he has been working for CSEM, as a group leader and as head of CSEM’s Photonics division in Zurich. Today, he is CSEM’s Vice President Nanomedicine, responsible for the Research Center for Nanomedicine in Landquart, Switzerland. Since 1998 he has also been extraordinary professor of Optoelectronics at the Institute for Microtechnology of the University of Neuchatel, and in 2009 he transferred to EPFL. Peter Seitz has authored and co-authored 180 publications in the fields of applied optics, semiconductor image sensing, machine vision, 3D range imaging with time-of-flight and optical coherence tomography and optical microsystems engineering. He holds 35 patents, and he has won 20 national and international awards together with his teams, of which the most prestigious is the IST Grand Prize 2004 of the European Commission. During 1998-2004, he was Secretary General of the European Optical Society EOS, and he has been appointed Fellow of the EOS. He has also been elected member of SATW, the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences. |
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Volker Koch, 02/2011 |