The present disclosure discloses an optochemical sensor for determining a measurand correlating with a concentration of an analyte in a measuring fluid, comprising: a housing having an immersion region configured for immersing in the measuring fluid; a removable cap having a sensor spot, the removable cap removably arranged at the immersion region of the housing, wherein the sensor spot is disposed on a circumferential face; a radiation source disposed in the housing for radiating excitation radiation into the removable cap, wherein a deflection module is disposed in the removable cap as to deflect excitation radiation radiated into the removable cap; a radiation receiver disposed in the housing for receiving received radiation emitted by the sensor spot; and a sensor circuit disposed in the housing and configured to control the radiation source, receive signals of the radiation receiver, and generate output signals based on the signals of the radiation receiver.

Embodiments relate to a bioagent capture and identification system including a microfluidic platform for label-free, size-based capture, enrichment, and optical profiling of bioagents using vertically aligned carbon nanotubes coated in gold nanoparticles. Bioagent identification can be automated using machine learning. Captured bioagents remain viable after capture and analysis. In the nanotube fabrication process, catalyst precursor layers are fabricated using patterned stamps. In addition, nanotube diameter and density are increased by increasing the concentration of metal content in the catalyst precursor layer.

Disclosed is a diffractive optical element includes a substrate (BS) having a first surface and a second surface opposite the first surface, being transparent to light in at least one spectral range and having, in the spectral range, a refractive index that is greater than that of water, at least one metasurface able to diffract light radiation of wavelength λ within the spectral range, incident with an angle of incidence, according to a diffracted radiation, so that the diffracted radiation propagates in the substrate and reaches the second surface of the substrate at a diffracted angle θ.sub.d that is greater than or equal to a limit angle (θ.sub.c) of total internal reflection between the substrate and water, the metasurface being designed to have, for the angle of incidence, a transmission with a 0 order of diffraction below 5% and a transmission of the diffracted radiation corresponding to a −1 or +1 order of diffraction above 50%.

A biosensor is provided. The biosensor includes a plurality of sensor units. Each of the sensor units includes one or more photodiodes, a first aperture feature disposed above the photodiodes, an interlayer disposed on the first aperture feature, a second aperture feature disposed on the interlayer, and a waveguide disposed above the second aperture feature. The second aperture feature includes an upper grating element and the first aperture feature includes one or more lower grating elements, and a grating period of the upper grating element is less than or equal to a grating period of the one or more lower grating elements. A difference of the absolute values between a first polarizing angle of the upper and lower grating elements in one of the sensor units and a second polarizing angle of the upper and lower grating elements in adjacent one of the sensor units is 90°.

Detection system for detecting at least one extracellular vesicle in a microfluid, including a broadband light source, collimating and focusing optics, a spectrophotometer, a microfluid apparatus and an active sensing element positioned inside the microfluid apparatus, the active sensing element including a substrate, a thin metal layer deposited on the substrate and a dielectric waveguide layer deposited on the metal layer, the light source generating at least one incident beam of light in the near infrared region, the metal layer and the waveguide layer each include a plurality of waveguides, the collimating optics collimates the incident beam of light on the substrate via the coupler, the focusing optics receives at least one reflection of the incident beam of light and provides the reflection to the spectrophotometer, the active sensing element causes surface plasmon waves in the microfluid when the microfluid is injected into the microfluid apparatus and the spectrophotometer detects resonance wavelength shifts in the reflection according to the surface plasmon waves thereby detecting the presence of the extracellular vesicle in the microfluid.

Detection system for detecting at least one extracellular vesicle in a microfluid, including a broadband light source, collimating and focusing optics, a spectrophotometer, a microfluid apparatus and an active sensing element positioned inside the microfluid apparatus, the active sensing element including a substrate, a thin metal layer deposited on the substrate and a dielectric waveguide layer deposited on the metal layer, the light source generating at least one incident beam of light in the near infrared region, the metal layer and the waveguide layer each include a plurality of waveguides, the collimating optics collimates the incident beam of light on the substrate via the coupler, the focusing optics receives at least one reflection of the incident beam of light and provides the reflection to the spectrophotometer, the active sensing element causes surface plasmon waves in the microfluid when the microfluid is injected into the microfluid apparatus and the spectrophotometer detects resonance wavelength shifts in the reflection according to the surface plasmon waves thereby detecting the presence of the extracellular vesicle in the microfluid.

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to techniques for reducing skew in an integrated device, such as a CMOS imaging device. In some aspects, multiple pixels of an integrated circuit may be configured to receive a same control signal and conduct charge carriers responsive to the control signal substantially at the same time. In some aspects, an integrated circuit may have modulated charge transfer channel voltage thresholds, such as by having different charge transfer channel lengths, and/or a doped portion configured to set a voltage threshold for charge transfer. In some aspects, an integrated circuit may have a via structure having a plurality of vias extending between continuous portions of at least two metal layers. In some aspects, an integrated circuit may include a row of pixels and a voltage source configured to provide a voltage to bias a semiconductor substrate of the integrated circuit along the row of pixels.

An apparatus for characterizing luminescent entities by excitation comprising: • a substrate (6) being in contact with a solution comprising luminescent entities; • a source of electromagnetic radiation (4) providing at least a primary beam of radiation (8); an objective (5); a first optical element (1) capable of transforming the intensity profile of the primary beam (8) into an arbitrary secondary intensity profile (distribution) (9); a second optical element (2) capable of separating (discriminating) radiation by wavelength; and a detector (7), where the arbitrary secondary intensity profile has at least an off-center circular continuous intensity distribution (33) focused on the back focal plane (12) of the objective forming a collimated beam (10) capable of creating an evanescent field on the side of the substrate where the solution comprising luminescent entities are located, where the evanescent field excites the luminescent entities thereby creating emission radiation separated by the second optical element (2) and captioned by the detector (7). The invention also relates to an apparatus comprising two optical elements providing a final third intensity profile (distribution) which is the convolution of two mathematical transformations corresponding to each of optical element one and four, respectively.

A system for multimodal nonlinear optical imaging is provided. Each mode uses a high NA objective to cause total internal reflection excitation at a sample-substrate interface. The system has a femtosecond oscillator to generate pulses used for two beams. The objective receives at least one beam, redirects the received at least one beam through a dielectric substrate to cause the TIR and produces corresponding evanescent waves in a portion of the sample adjacent to the sample-substrate interface, and collects a backward-propagating beam of pulses of responsive light. The portion of the sample illuminated by the evanescent waves emits responsive light. Different modes or combinations of the distinct modalities may be selected to access complementary chemical and structural information for various chemical species near the sample-substrate interface. Each mode may have mode-specific control such as selective beam blocking, power ratios and filtering.

Swept polarization optical beams are directed to a sample to produce fluorescence. typical as a plurality of single photon detection events. Based on frequencies associated with the polarization sweeps, orientation of a sample can be determined. Using polarization sweeps at first and second frequencies and wavelength, donor fluorophore orientation can be established based on the first frequency and wavelength and acceptor orientation can be established based on a sum or difference of the first and second frequencies and the second wavelength.