Photonic Breakthrough Allows 'Lab-on-a-Chip'

Roland Piquepaille writes "Georgia Tech researchers have shrunk an optical device called wavelength demultiplier (WD) by combining into one crystal three unique properties of photonics crystals. This optical discovery opens the way to sophisticated and cheap bio-sensors mounted on 'lab-on-a-chip' devices -- sensors to run blood tests, detect chemicals in water supplies or for drug testing. Their new WD is less than a millimeter in all dimensions rather than the several centimeters of other currently available WDs. And it should not cost more to produce."

Comments

Wavelength-accurate cameras

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes me wonder about using an array of them in a camera in order to record colour images in terms of their actual spectral content instead of approximating down to red, green and blue. Then just run them in reverse (I assume the optical demux can be used in reverse) to re-create the display.

This would make a convincing display even for those with colour blindness or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromattetrachro matic vision.

As an aside, it has been mentioned that humans with tetrachromatic vision can see through various types of man-made textiles ;-)

Sadly, human tetrachromatic vision occurs only in females :-(

Re:"Allows"? it's already possible

[amide_one]

Only trouble with that is that scientific journalism isn't aimed at scientists; it's aimed at the generally-educated layman, who outnumber scientists hundreds to one. And so the average reader isn't going to be very impressed by "this new device could allow the integration of another optical component onto the chip rather than the reader, reducing the cost of the reader and the risk of carryover" -- or at least, he'll find "will allow 'lab on a chip' devices" a lot more impressive. There's already plenty of literature aimed at scientists.

Scientific journalism really *is* PR; the reason universities and "Scientific American"-type magazines publish these things is to show people what science is doing lately... and why you should encourage your kids to grow up to be scientists, why you should write to your Congressman to support the NIH, why you should make a generous bequest to your alma mater, etc.

That said, it really isn't correct to report an incremental advance as more than that. (And not even one actually ready yet for micro-TAS systems; they demonstrate a device optimized for 24 channels over 1.5-1.6 um.) Not to say that it's not an impressive bit of work.

LabManPower

[Doc Ruby]

Great! So now I should be able to get a little lab on a chip that analyzes the air and water around me, wherever I go, for pollutants and toxins. Am I glad that we've got the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act that keep my personal environment clean.

Wait, my old chips are telling me that those "clean" Acts are really "dirty". And since the police will arrest you when you photograph them, it's going to be tough on people getting the dirt on polluters.

Or maybe these little LabMans on every allergic person's mobile phones will force a change on all that. Will the government be able to lie to us about our pollution laws being "Clean" laws when our phones are chirping whenever we leave our oxygen tents?