Speaker
Description
The development of miniaturized thin-film silicon photodetectors and their integration with microfluidics for point-of-care biosensor microsystems has been studied for years. These photodetectors can operate in the visible range using fluorescent, chemiluminescent, and colorimetric molecular markers and in the UV range, aiming to achieve label-free detection of proteins, nucleic acids, and other organic molecules of interest.
The primary goal of this thesis is to develop a novel microfabricated thin-film silicon photodetector based on a parallel p-i-n junction (as opposed to the standard perpendicular p-i-n junction). This parallel junction will be deposited on top of a gate/insulator to stack. The gate will be used to modulate the position of the Fermi level of the lateral p-i-n junction, allowing fine control of the baseline dark current. This project involves semiconductor device design and simulation, clean room microfabrication (including mask design), and optoelectronic testing. Finally, if the device characteristics allow, the novel photodetector will be integrated and tested in a microfluidic system for biomolecular sensing.
