A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineers has developed a thin, patterned, silicon-based component that excels at trapping non-visible light and could open up low-cost manufacturing possibilities for biochemical sensors and more.
The group, led by Assistant Professor Filiz Yesilkoy, details its “substrate-less metasurface” in a paper in the journal Nature Communications. In particular, PhD students and co-lead authors Wihan Adi and Samir Rosas and their collaborators highlight the metasurface’s ability to induce light and matter to couple into a hybrid state called polaritons. These quasi-particles are especially of interest in chemistry, where they could alter chemical reactivity.
Metasurfaces are tiny, engineered, nanoscale materials that can manipulate electromagnetic waves, much like how so-called “wave breakers” physically disrupt water waves, says Adi.
Read the full story here: https://engineering.wisc.edu/news/light-trapping-metasurface-tech-boosts-biosensors/