Innovating Infrared Spectroscopy With Optical Microchips
ECE Professor Srinivas Tadigadapa and Soheil Farazi, PhD’24, electrical engineering, are using quantum mechanical techniques to develop optical microchips that will revolutionize infrared spectroscopy by reducing the need for bulky and costly palmtop machinery, making the process more accessible.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Tanner Stening. Main photo: Northeastern University researchers are developing optical chips used in spectroscopy research. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
Northeastern researchers innovate optical microchips with applications for sensing and communications
Infrared light cannot be seen, but it can be felt as heat. Lying beyond the red color in the electromagnetic spectrum, it is used by animals to detect prey in the dark and in night vision cameras.
Infrared spectroscopy, which explores how infrared light interacts with matter, has played a pivotal role in helping researchers advance in a range of domains, including drug testing, material science and environmental monitoring—just to name a few.
Research in this field has often involved using expensive instruments that cost in tens of thousands of dollars due to the use of broad, heavy, and bulky light sources and detectors.
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PhD student Soheil Farazi, who studies electrical engineering, works on microchip research in the Egan Research Center on Aug. 15, 2024. Photos by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
But new optical chips being developed by researchers in Northeastern University’s Computer and Electrical Engineering Department are promising to bring down those costs and the size to palm top instruments.
“At this time, if you want to do this type of spectroscopy, you have to use equipment that is very large and bulky,” says Northeastern professor Srinivas Tadigadapa, one of the researchers behind the chips. “What we have done by miniaturizing these sources and making them chip-scale, it will be possible for us to (one day) get them into cell phones or other smart devices of the next generation.”
Tadigadapa and Soheil Farazi, a doctoral student in Tadigadapa’s lab, have utilized advanced quantum mechanical techniques to develop the technology.
One of the primary methods they used involved a quantum physics concept known as a bound-state in the continuum (BIC). This approach leverages specific wave patterns and resonances within a structured material to create chips capable of generating coherent, single-wavelength light sources akin to lasers.
Read full story at Northeastern Global News