Staying ahead of the pack
Electrical engineering and physics professor Pierre Berini is racing to stay ahead of international researchers in plasmonics, a science that explores the interaction of light with metallic nano-structures.
Interest in plasmonics has grown dramatically since his groundbreaking 1999 success in guiding light waves along metal surfaces in integrated structures, opening the possibility of creating integrated circuits that work with light rather than electricity. Potential applications include the development of sophisticated biosensors to detect everything from cancer cells in blood to harmful pathogens in food and water.
Since that initial breakthrough, which led to a University of Ottawa Young Researcher of the Year Award for Berini, he has launched a venture-backed company aimed at commercial technology transfer. The company has raised $6 million for application development, with Berini filing 17 separate patents.
“Our primary interest is to create effective biosensing tools for users in public health, health safety, drug discovery and national security,” he explains. “This could mean the development of a device that enables government inspectors to detect pesticides, herbicides or other contaminants in the water supply or the presence of bacteria such as listeria in food.
“For medical professionals, research could lead to portable point-of-care devices that analyze a patient’s blood to detect cancer and other diseases,” he adds.
Berini’s decade of innovative research in plasmonics was recently recognized with a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship ─ one of Canada’s premier science and engineering research awards.
While award recognition and funding are gratifying, Berini says he and his interdisciplinary research team at the School of information Technology and Engineering have their work cut out for them in staying at the forefront of an extremely competitive research field.
By Greg Higgins
Published: February 2009