We present an all-polymer photonic sensing platform based on whispering-gallery mode microgoblet lasers integrated into a microfluidic chip. The chip is entirely made from polymers, enabling the use of the devices as low-cost disposables. The microgoblet cavities feature quality factors exceeding 10(5) and are fabricated from poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) using spin-coating, mask-based optical lithography, wet chemical etching, and thermal reflow. In contrast to silica-based microtoroid resonators, this approach replaces technically demanding vacuum-based dry etching and serial laser-based reflow techniques by solution-based processing and parallel thermal reflow. This enables scaling to large-area substrates, and hence significantly reduces device costs. Moreover, the resonators can be fabricated on arbitrary substrate materials, e.g., on transparent and flexible polymer foils. Doping the microgoblets with the organic dye pyrromethene 597 transforms the passive resonators into lasers. Devices have lasing thresholds below 0.6 nJ per pulse and can be efficiently pumped via free-space optics using a compact and low-cost green laser diode. We demonstrate that arrays of microgoblet lasers can be readily integrated into a state-of-the-art microfluidic chip replicated via injection moulding. In a proof-of-principle experiment, we show the viability of the lab-on-a-chip via refractometric sensing, demonstrating a bulk refractive index sensitivity (BRIS) of 10.56 nm per refractive index unit.

Different types of click chemistry reactions are proposed and used for the functionalization of surfaces and materials, and covalent attachment of organic molecules. In the present work, two different catalyst-free click approaches, namely azide-alkyne and thiol-alkyne click chemistry are studied and compared for the immobilization of microarrays of azide or thiol inks on functionalized glass surfaces. For this purpose, the surface of glass is first functionalized with dibenzocyclooctyne-acid (DBCO-acid), a cyclooctyne with a carboxyl group. Then, the DBCO-terminated surfaces are functionalized via microchannel cantilever spotting with different fluorescent and nonfluorescent azide and thiol inks. Although both routes work reliably for surface functionalization, the protein binding experiments reveal that using a thiol-alkyne route will obtain the highest surface density of molecular immobilization in such spotting approaches. The obtained achievements and results from this work can be used for design and manufacturing of microscale patterns suitable for biomedical and biological applications.

Optically coupled microcavities have emerged as photonic structures with promising properties for investigation of fundamental science as well as for applications. We report on the fabrication and spatially resolved spectroscopy of on-chip photonic molecule (PM) lasers consisting of two coupled, dye-doped polymeric microdisks on a silicon substrate. We investigate the fundamental lasing properties with focus on the spatial distribution of modes, the coupling dependent suppression of lasing modes, and in particular the application-oriented operation of these devices in aqueous environments. By depositing an additional polymer layer onto the lithographically structured cavities made of dye-doped poly(methyl methacrylate), coupling-gap widths below 150 nm with aspect ratios of the micro-/nanostructure exceeding 9 : 1 are achieved. This enables strong optical coupling at visible wavelengths despite relatively small resonator radii of 25 mm. The lasing properties of dye-doped PMs are investigated using spatially resolved micro-photoluminescence (m-PL) spectroscopy. This technique allows for the direct imaging of whispering-gallery modes (WGMs) in the photonics molecules. For subwavelength coupling gaps, we observe lasing from delocalized eigenstates of the PMs (termed in the following as super-modes). Using size-mismatched cavities, the lasing mode suppression for different coupling-gap widths is investigated. We further demonstrate single-mode lasing operation in aqueous environments with PMs, which are realized on a low-cost, polymer-on-silicon platform.