Despite the tremendous advances in
micro- and nanoelectronics and
the fast-pacing advances in photonic circuit designs, seamless monolithic
integration of electronic and photonic components on single chips
still remains elusive. In this work, a radically designed silicon-based
chip that monolithically integrates in a 37 mm2 footprint
10 interferometric optical sensors along with their respective optical
sources, spectral analyzers, and photodetector arrays is presented.
The chip is fabricated with mainstream CMOS-compatible fabrication
techniques and employs optical devices operating in the visible/infrared
spectrum and waveguides with a critical dimension of 1.0 μm.
In addition, it exploits the newly introduced detection principle
of broad-band Mach–Zehnder interferometry that surpasses the
stringent requirement for external monochromatic sources and inherent
limitations of traditional interferometry and introduces alternative
designs of on-chip spectral analyzers and mode-filtering components,
aspiring thus to become a novel lab-on-a-chip that can address the
needs of next-generation analytical systems. Apart from the conceptual
design, novel photonic features, fabrication steps, and out-of-the-box
system development that circumvents the need for fluidic interfacing
and employs only electrical interconnects, the present work tests
the potential of the fully spectroscopic chip for analytical applications
through real-time monitoring of immunochemical reactions and demonstrates
limits of detection for antimouse IgG antibody and CRP of 60 and 8
pM, respectively.