Patent ID: 7324195

Claim:
A planar waveguide spectrometer apparatus comprising a microfluidic channel or compartment microfabricated integrally with a planar waveguide or hybrid assembled with the planar waveguide and optically coupled thereto, wherein the planar waveguide comprises: a thin planar substrate made of a transparent waveguiding optical material having the following features integrally formed thereon; a planar multilayer of differing refractive indices to allow guiding of light in a direction disallowing diffusion of light perpendicular to the plane of the layers; one or more input waveguides to further guide light radiation transversely from an input edge of the substrate disallowing diffusion of radiation in a direction along the multilayer plane and parallel to the input edge, said input waveguides to guide light a predetermined distance to a termination edge or image line; a waveguide-based spectrometer having diffractive elements and slab regions between the input waveguides, the diffractive elements and output waveguides, with an input region coincident to the termination edges of the input waveguides, the diffractive elements being adapted to separate a plurality of input wavelengths into separate focal spots along an image plane of desired curvature perpendicular to the optical guiding multilayer; and one or more output waveguides similar to the input waveguides, said output waveguides beginning at the image plane of the spectrometer at positions suitable for capturing radiation at desired wavelengths, and guiding the radiation to an output edge perpendicular to the optical multilayer planes and coincident with an output plane of the termination points of the output waveguides; and a detector array placed facing the output edge with detector elements following all or some of the output waveguides at their termination points, wherein the microfluidic channel or compartment is microfabricated integrally with the thin planar substrate or hybrid assembled with the thin planar substrate and optically coupled thereto, wherein multiple diffraction order from the spectrometer are allowed to illuminate the output waveguides, and unwanted orders are eliminated waveguide-by-waveguide basis by means of lithographically defined scattering from resonant perturbations of the output waveguides or by filters added to the output waveguide paths.