Dr. Shvets, Gennady
Department of Applied and Engineering Physics
Cornell University
Seminar Information
Water absorption of mid-infrared (MIR) radiation severely limits the options for vibrational spectroscopy of the analytes – including live biological cells – that must be probed in aqueous environments. I will describe a live cell biosensing platform based on arrays of plasmonic metasurfaces. When cells are cultured on such metasurfaces integrated with standard bottomless microwells, inverted MIR microscopy can be carried out in reflection mode using either incoherent (FTIR) or coherent (quantum cascade laser, or QCL) light sources.
For FTIR-based MIR spectroscopy – which is suitable for well-scale vibrational spectroscopy – I will show its capabilities for distinguishing cancerous vs normal cells, time-lapse monitoring of cell adhesion to coated substrates, and classification of various chemical stimuli [
Gennady Shvets is a Professor of Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University. He received his PhD in Physics from MIT in 1995. Before moving to Cornell in 2016, he was on the physics faculty of the University of Texas at Austin for 12 years. His research interests include nanophotonics, optical and microwave metamaterials and their applications (including bio-sensing, optoelectronic devices, and vacuum electronics), topological concepts in photonics, and intense laser-matter interactions. He is the author or co-author of more than 250 papers in refereed journals, earning him the designation of a Highly Cited ResearcherTM by Clarivate (publisher of Web of Science) in 2019-2022. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), Optical Society of America (OSA), and SPIE.
Professor Shvets is one of the pioneers in the emerging field of active optical metamaterials and their integration with other controllable platforms, such as liquid crystals and 2D materials. His most recent work deals with the applications of metamaterials and plasmonics to biosensing and molecular fingerprinting of proteins and live cells using metamaterial arrays, electrically-controlled nanoscale photonic topological insulators, graphene-based metamaterials, and multi-color meta-optics. His group developed some of the pioneering concepts in the emerging field of ultra-fast nanophotonics, including ultrafast amplitude/phase modulation and polarimetry using graphene-integrated metasurfaces, broadband high-harmonics generation, and varifocal multi-color metalenses.
His other interest is in the field of biophotonics. He is particularly interested in the integration of plasmonic metasurfaces with various applications-specific platforms such as microfluidics and optical fibers. His group is exploring the nano-bio interface between plasmonic structures and living cells, tissues, and bacterial colonies. Recently, he demonstrated the first metasurface-based tool for studying the effects of pharmaceutical stimuli on living cells in real time, including intra-cellular protein transport, cell membrane modifications, and the mode-of-action of different therapeutics.