Metasurface Device for On-Chip Tissue Diagnostics

Inventors at Stanford University have developed a colorimetric device to visualize microstructural features in tissue biopsies towards clinical diagnostics. The geometric arrangement and density of fibrous media, such as collagen fibers, in tissues can be effective quantitative biomarkers for disease, However, these structural markers been clinically underutilized because of a lack of suitable visualization technologies. The invention is a glass chip that is patterned with dielectric nanostructures, in which the spectral shift of visible frequencies is sensitive to the anisotropic properties of the tissue sample with a clinically available microscope. The researchers show that tangential and radial collagen orientations, corresponding localized and metastasized cancer tissues respectively, show distinct color response upon polarized light excitation. Additionally, they demonstrate the predictability of the color changes associated with cancer biopsies in numerical simulations to enable reliable and rapid on-chip tissue diagnostics.

Stage of Development
The authors have experimentally validated and numerically simulated the colorimetric optical response of the device for birefringent tissue biopsies as a proof of concept.