Elsevier

Optics Communications

Volume 281, Issue 7, 1 April 2008, Pages 1789-1795
Optics Communications

Superimposed nanostructured diffraction gratings as high capacity barcodes for biological and chemical applications

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optcom.2007.04.066Get rights and content

Abstract

We describe a new non-contact high capacity optical tagging technique for bead based assays, based on the use of nanostructured barcodes. The tags are generated from a number of superimposed diffraction gratings. With one-dimensional diffraction, capacity for up to 68,000 distinguishable tags has been demonstrated, with a theoretical capacity of up to 109 tags. Extension into two dimensions increases this theoretical limit to 1021 tags.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Peter Roach, Joseph She, Cameron Neylon and Tony Bland for fruitful discussions, in particular on the tag requirements for biochemical applications. We also acknowledge financial support from the EPSRC and the Basic Technology Research Programme of the UK Research Councils.

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