ELECTRO-TUNABLE OPTICAL DEVICES FOR MOLECULAR AND CELLULAR STUDIES

In the present scenario of information technology, researchers are looking for new systems able to deal more efficiently with the increasing amount of information produced by modern society. Nowadays, these tasks are accomplished by CMOS transistors and FLASH memories. Despite their wide implementation, these devices are facing serious issues along their road of development, mainly related to stable operation and power dissipation managing. Advancements in this field could boost the application of artificial intelligence and Big Data analysis, as well as enable new data communication protocols. By taking inspiration from the brain, a very powerful system characterized by low power consumption and high interconnectivity, new proposed devices, such as RRAM memories, aim at overcoming these issues. Properly engineered systems of this typology could act moreover as platforms for more precise and comprehensive biomedical studies. In this thesis, a new class of electro-tunable optical devices is presented in the framework of next-generation memory systems. The model device possesses very favorable characteristics, such as high density and interconnectivity. Moreover, the optical readout, performed by a camera, enables parallel operation. Two realizations of this device concept were studied. The first one is a new configuration for Zero-Mode Waveguides (ZMWs), a well-known nanophotonic system used to perform studies on fluorophore dispersion at the single molecule level. In the proposed device, the interplay of an electric voltage allows to control fluorophore concentration and residence time inside the ZMWs. The light intensity coming from the ZMWs gives information about these two parameters. In the second realization, the developed ZMWs platform is used to perform an optical detection of cardiomyocytes action potentials (APs). The cells are cultured on a thin substrate placed above the fluorophore dispersion. The substrate features an array of pass-through electrodes, which allow the electric APs to be transferred from the cells to the fluorophore dispersion. APs were successfully measured with high SNR. Moreover, the device proved able to detect the effects of a drug administered to the cell culture. This device could find application as a new system for in-vitro electrophysiology, including drugs cardiotoxicity studies. Due to the optical readout scheme, it promises to offer very high spatial resolution, orders of magnitude higher than conventional multi-electrode arrays systems.