Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2011
Porous silicon waveguides with integrated porous silicon grating couplersare demonstrated as small molecule biosensors. Two fabrication methods arepresented for the grating couplers: standard electron beam lithography withreactive ion etching and a new technique based on direct imprinting ofporous substrates. Although the gratings fabricated using standardlithographic techniques have steeper sidewalls and enable a larger availablesensing surface area inside the waveguide, the imprinted gratings have theadvantage of rapid and low-cost fabrication. Both the lithographically andimprinted sensors are shown to have waveguide losses on the order of 10dB/cm, and both are demonstrated for detection of 16mer nucleic acids.