In the present work, centrifugal deposited Au-Pd core-shell nanoparticle (NP) film was proposed for the room-temperature optical detection of hydrogen gas. The size dimension of 44, 48, 54, and 62 nm Au-Pd core-shell nanocubes with 40 nm Au core were synthesized following a solution-based seed-mediated growth method. Compared to a pure Pd NP, this core-shell structure with an inert Au core could decrease the H diffusion length in the Pd shell. Through a modified centrifugal deposition process, continues film samples with different core-shell NPs were deposited on 10 mm diameter quartz substrates. Under various hydrogen concentration conditions, the optical response properties of these samples were characterized by an intensity-based optical fiber bundle sensor. Experimental results show that the continues film that was composed of 62 nm Au-Pd core-shell NPs has achieved a stable and repeatable reflectance response with low zero drift in the range of 4 to 0.1% hydrogen after a stress relaxation mechanism at first few loading/unloading cycles. Because of the short H diffusion length due to the thinner Pd shell, the film sample composed of 44 nm Au-Pd NPs has achieved a dramatically decreased response/recovery time to 4 s/30 s. The experiments present the promising prospect of this simple method to fabricate optical hydrogen sensors with controllable high sensitivity and response rate at low cost.

Photonic crystal (PC)-based devices have been widely used since 1990s, while PC has just stepped into the research area of nanofluidic. In this paper, photonic crystal had been used as a complementary metal oxide semiconductors (CMOS) compatible part to create a nanofluidic structure. A nanofluidic structure prototype had been fabricated with CMOS-compatible techniques. The nanofluidic channels were sealed by direct bonding polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and the periodic gratings on photonic crystal structure. The PC was fabricated on a 4-in. Si wafer with Si₃N₄ as the guided mode layer and SiO₂ film as substrate layer. The higher order mode resonance wavelength of PC-based nanofluidic structure had been selected, which can confine the enhanced electrical field located inside the nanochannel area. A design flow chart was used to guide the fabrication process. By optimizing the fabrication device parameters, the periodic grating of PC-based nanofluidic structure had a high-fidelity profile with fill factor at 0.5. The enhanced electric field was optimized and located within the channel area, and it can be used for PC-based nanofluidic applications with high performance.

A nanofluidic biosensor based on nanoreplica molding photonic crystal (PC) was proposed. UV epoxy PC was fabricated by nanoreplica molding on a master PC wafer. The nanochannels were sealed between the gratings on the PC surface and a taped layer. The resonance wavelength of PC-based nanofluidic biosensor was used for testing the sealing effect. According to the peak wavelength value of the sensor, an initial label-free experiment was realized with R6g as the analyte. When the PC-based biosensor was illuminated by a monochromatic light source with a specific angle, the resonance wavelength of the sensor will match with the light source and amplified the electromagnetic field. The amplified electromagnetic field was used to enhance the fluorescence excitation result. The enhancement effect was used for enhancing fluorescence excitation and emission when matched with the resonance condition. Alexa Fluor 635 was used as the target dye excited by 637-nm laser source on a configured photonic crystal enhanced fluorescence (PCEF) setup, and an initial PCEF enhancement factor was obtained.