Foldable and Cytocompatible Sol-gel TiO[subscript 2] Photonics
Name
Li_Foldable and cytocompatible.pdf
Size
1.5 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
7d6af5fbdfb649fa71e8a4d664ee7241
Author(s)
Li, Lan
Zhang, Ping
Wang, Wei-Ming
Lin, Hongtao
Zerdoum, Aidan B.
Geiger, Sarah J.
Liu, Yangchen
Xiao, Nicholas
Zou, Yi
Ogbuu, Okechukwu
Date Issued
September 2015
Journal
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Li, Lan, Ping Zhang, Wei-Ming Wang, Hongtao Lin, Aidan B. Zerdoum, Sarah J. Geiger, Yangchen Liu, et al. “Foldable and Cytocompatible Sol-Gel TiO2 Photonics.” Scientific Reports 5 (September 7, 2015): 13832.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Integrated photonics provides a miniaturized and potentially implantable platform to manipulate and enhance the interactions between light and biological molecules or tissues in in-vitro and in-vivo settings, and is thus being increasingly adopted in a wide cross-section of biomedical applications ranging from disease diagnosis to optogenetic neuromodulation. However, the mechanical rigidity of substrates traditionally used for photonic integration is fundamentally incompatible with soft biological tissues. Cytotoxicity of materials and chemicals used in photonic device processing imposes another constraint towards these biophotonic applications. Here we present thin film TiO[subscript 2] as a viable material for biocompatible and flexible integrated photonics. Amorphous TiO[subscript 2] films were deposited using a low temperature (<250 °C) sol-gel process fully compatible with monolithic integration on plastic substrates. High-index-contrast flexible optical waveguides and resonators were fabricated using the sol-gel TiO[subscript 2] material, and resonator quality factors up to 20,000 were measured. Following a multi-neutral-axis mechanical design, these devices exhibit remarkable mechanical flexibility, and can sustain repeated folding without compromising their optical performance. Finally, we validated the low cytotoxicity of the sol-gel TiO[subscript 2] devices through in-vitro cell culture tests. These results demonstrate the potential of sol-gel TiO[subscript 2] as a promising material platform for novel biophotonic devices.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep13832
