Integrated Optoelectronics for Parallel Microbioanalysis

Miniature, relatively inexpensive microbioanalytical systems ("laboratory-on-a-chip" devices) have been proposed for the detection of hazardous microbes and toxic chemicals. Each system of this type would include optoelectronic sensors and sensor-output-processing circuitry that would simultaneously look for the optical change, fluorescence, delayed fluorescence, or phosphorescence signatures from multiple redundant sites that have interacted with the test biomolecules in order to detect which one(s) was present in a given situation. These systems could be used in a variety of settings that could include doctors' offices, hospitals, hazardous-material laboratories, biological-research laboratories, military operations, and chemical-processing plants.