Subtle Application of Electrical Field-Induced Lossy Mode Resonance to Enhance Performance of Optical Planar Waveguide Biosensor.

Yu-Cheng Lin,Liang-Yü Chen

doi:10.3390/bios11030086

Abstract

Many studies concern the generation of lossy mode resonances (LMRs) using metallic oxide thin films that are deposited on optical fiber. However, the LMR-based optical fiber sensors are frangible, do not allow easy surface modification, and are not suited to mass production. This study proposes an electrical field-induced LMR-based biosensor with an optical planar waveguide to replace surface modification and allow the mass production of protein biosensors and accelerate the speed of the analyte to decrease the detection time. Experimentally, the biosensor is evaluated using charged serum albumin molecules and characterized in terms of the LMR wavelength shift using an externally applied voltage for different durations. The externally applied voltage generates a significant electric field, which drives the non-neutralized biomolecules and increases the LMR wavelength shift. Our experimental results demonstrate that there are two different mechanisms of adsorption of serum albumin molecules for short-term and long-term observations. These are used to calculate the sensitivity of the biosensor. This electrical field-induced method is highly significant for the development and fabrication of LMR-based biosensors.

Highlights

Many studies concern the generation of lossy mode resonances (LMRs) using metallic oxide thin films that are deposited on optical fiber
This study addresses problems that are inherent to LMR-based optical fiber biosensors
The LMR wavelength interrogation method correlates to determine the dip in the transmission spectrum for EF-LMROPW sensors

Summary

Introduction

Many studies concern the generation of lossy mode resonances (LMRs) using metallic oxide thin films that are deposited on optical fiber. This study proposes an electrical field-induced LMR-based biosensor with an optical planar waveguide to replace surface modification and allow the mass production of protein biosensors and accelerate the speed of the analyte to decrease the detection time. The biosensor is evaluated using charged serum albumin molecules and characterized in terms of the LMR wavelength shift using an externally applied voltage for different durations. Our experimental results demonstrate that there are two different mechanisms of adsorption of serum albumin molecules for short-term and long-term observations These are used to calculate the sensitivity of the biosensor. The first surface plasmon resonance (SPR) based sensor was proposed by Nylander et al in 1982 [1] It used a Kretschmann configuration, which consisted of an optical prism with a 56-nm-thick silver thin-film coating. Dielectric materials of the photonic crystal, sensors based on BSWs are characterized by mechanical and chemical stability, permitting operation in aggressive environments [9]

Methods

Results

Conclusion