Advanced Nanofabrication for Novel Plasmonic Biosensors
Licentiatavhandling, 2012
There is an increasing interest in the development of novel biosensors in the foreseeable future.
The impact on society of diseases connected to the aging of population, for example infectious
diseases, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, has the potential of increasing the running costs of
welfare over a sustainable threshold already within a few years. Early diagnostics and pointof-
care testing will play a fundamental role in achieving a cost-effective health-care capable of
satisfying the increasing needs. This translates into a drive towards further improved diagnostic
devices where miniaturization and enhanced performances enabling detection of low-abundant
biomarkers is expected a key component.
In this thesis work, the aim has been to translate advanced nanotechnology fabrication processes
to novel biosensor platforms which could address some of the key issues just presented above.
In order to achieve this, a sensing principle suitable for employment in miniaturized devices is
necessary. In this work, we exploited the sensitivity of the optical properties of metal nanoparticles
to changes in refractive index of the surrounding environment. Such nanoplasmonic structures
enable a transduction of biorecognition events occurring within a few tens of nanometers
from their surface into a detectable optical contrast, or color.
The inherent flexibility of nanofabrication processing combined with the size and simple instrumentation
of nanoplasmonic based transducers allows for a wide variety of potential applications.
In this work, two novel biosensing platforms were developed addressing two different challenges:
on the one hand, the development of a portable and simple device for point-of-care diagnostics,
and on the other hand, a sensor with potential to effectively tackle the challenge of detecting
low-abundant analyte in small volumes.
In the first case, the sensor and detector elements were integrated into the same chip by fabricating
gold nanostructures directly onto photodiodes. In this way, biorecognition events could be
directly transduced into electric signals via shifts in the photocurrent generated by the detectors.
The sensor was tested by detection of specific protein binding in a custom made flow cell.
In the second case, steps towards the development of a biosensing platform for detection of low
concentration of biomarkers in small volumes were taken by developing a fabrication process
which integrates gold nanoplasmonic structures in a nanofluidic network. By locating the sensor
elements directly into nanofluidic channels, target molecules can be efficiently transported from
the bulk to the sensor surface. We believe that this could enable combined high capture efficiency,
short detection time and low sample consumption even at low concentration of analytes.
Photo diode
Localized surface plasmon resonance
Bioanalytical sensing
Nanopores.
Solar cell
Nanofabrication
Nanodisks
Nanoplasmonics
Biosensor