Towards on-chip integration of a silicon photonic microfluidic thermal flow rate sensor on a silicon-on-insulator process

Silicon photonic (SiP) biosensors promise portable and analytical systems at the point-of-care. An on-chip inchannel flow sensing solution could improve the robustness and accuracy of SiP biosensor-based measurements. This work presents an on-chip silicon photonic microfluidic thermal flow-rate sensor on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) process to non-intrusively measure the flow rate inside a microfluidic channel. The proposed design is compact, inexpensive, translatable to any photonic foundry process, convenient for integration and readout, and comparable in performance to commercial off-chip calorimetric flow rate sensors. It highlights the potential for miniaturization and on-chip integration of accurate flow rate sensing elements and enabling precision flow control in point-of-care devices.