Grating-coupled Surface Plasmon Resonance (GC-SPR) Optimization for Phase-interrogation Biosensing in a Microfluidic Circuit

• DOI: 10.20944/preprints201804.0363.v1
• Publication Date: 2018-05-01T10:37:43Z
• Authors: Stefano Rossi; Enrico Gazzola; Pietro Capaldo; Giulia Borile; Filippo Romanato
• Keywords: BiosensingLab-on-a-chip; lab-on-a-chip; Chemical technology; microfluidic; TP1-1185; 16. Peace & justice; Nanofabrication; 01 natural sciences; optics; Article; Microfluidic; Surface plasmon resonance; 0103 physical sciences; nanofabrication; surface plasmon resonance; biosensing; nanofabrication; lab-on-a-chip; microfluidic; biosensing; surface plasmon resonance

Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) based sensors have the advantage of being label-free, enzyme-free and real-time. However, their spreading in multidisciplinary research is still limited and almost confined to prism-coupled devices. Plasmonic gratings, combined with a simple and cost-effective instrumentation, have been poorly developed compared to prism-coupled system mainly due to their lower sensitivity. Here we describe the optimization and signal enhancement of a sensing platform based on phase-interrogation method, which entails the exploitation of a nanostructured sensor. This technique is particularly suitable for integration of the plasmonic sensor in a lab-on-a-chip platform and can be used in a microfluidic circuit to ease the sensing procedures and limit the injected volume. The careful optimization of most suitable experimental parameters by numerical simulations leads to a 30 to 50% enhancement of SPR response, opening new possibilities for applications in the biomedical research field while maintaining the ease and versatility of the configuration.