Ballard Seminar: Filiz Yesilköy - Metasurface Biosensors Enabled by Strong Light–Matter Interactions

Abstract:

Recent advances in nanophotonics have opened new possibilities for manipulating light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. Specifically, mid-infrared metasurfaces are emerging as powerful technologies for label-free biochemical sensing, molecular spectroscopy, and vibrational strong coupling. In this talk, I will present my group’s research findings in scalable metasurfaces, and surface-enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy platforms designed to overcome the limitations of conventional infrared sensors. The presentation will highlight free-standing silicon metasurfaces supporting high-Q q-BIC modes, thermally tunable resonances, and quantum-coherent light-matter interactions. I will also discuss high-throughput plasmonic platforms based on chemically synthesized monocrystalline microparticles and wafer-scale metasurfaces for sensitive detection of polymers, proteins, and complex biological fluids. Together, these findings establish new pathways toward integrated mid-IR spectroscopy, biochemical sensing, polaritonic chemistry, and next-generation biomedical diagnostics.

Speaker:

Dr. Yesilkoy is an associate professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research focuses on developing nanophotonic systems for next-generation diagnostic biosensors and bioimaging systems. Dr. Filiz Yesilkoy received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2012, upon receiving the Fulbright Foreign Student Scholarship. Dr. Yesilkoy was a postdoctoral researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne in Switzerland and the University of Tokyo in Japan before joining UW-Madison in 2020. She has published over 30 journal articles and two book chapters. She is the recipient of the Trailblazer and Maximizing Investigators Research Awards provided by the US National Institutes of Health. 

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/filiz-yesilkoy-b980b514

Lab webpage: https://yesilkoylab.bme.wisc.edu/