Abstract

In the world of healthcare, it has always been desirable to have a single test that can screen for multiple different patient ailments at once. Toward this end, a silicon photonics platform has been developed that uses photonic integrated circuits in combination with lasers to simultaneously perform various biological assays, i.e., to screen for biological markers in a patient’s sample. This system uses inexpensive passive flow cards with inexpensive photonic integrated circuits to create a disposable test platform that can be used in point of care environments. However, the necessary bench-top equipment to run an assay with these cards is currently cost prohibitive for point of care applications. In this work, an alternative, custom, low-cost system tailored to the specific needs of this platform has been developed. This system, also called the reader, is able to drive and control various tunable laser sources and read data from photodiodes, which capture radiation power levels at the output of the optical system. The photo generated currents are then amplified in an analog front end, digitized using a microcontroller embedded analog-to-digital converter, and finally stored and transferred to a host PC for post-processing.

Publication Date

8-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Electrical Engineering (MS)

Department, Program, or Center

Electrical Engineering

College

Kate Gleason College of Engineering

Advisor

Dorin Patru

Advisor/Committee Member

Stefan F. Preble

Advisor/Committee Member

Carlos Barrios

Comments

This thesis has been embargoed. The full-text will be available on or around 3/1/2025.

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

Available for download on Saturday, March 29, 2025

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