Biosensing on the End of an Optical Fiber

Plasmonic assays use a phenomena known as plasmon resonance to measure biomolecular interactions in real-time, without the need for molecular labels. Conventional setups typically consist of bulky apparati, and rely on gold chips, microuidics and sample extraction. These systems are expensive and lack spatial resolution.Therefore, a miniaturized plasmonic biosensor on the end of an optical ber has beendeveloped. This sensor can be used to spatially resolve molecular concentrations, forexample in probing hormone excretions levels concentrated locally around immobilizedcells. Gold nanoparticles are employed as a cost-eective alternative to metallicchips, which exhibit localized plasmon resonance, and are more sensitive to smallmolecule interactions than traditional plasmonic assays. An optical model has beendeveloped to quantify sensor response, and shows excellent agreement with measurements of bulk refractive index and protein binding. Nanoparticle surfaces are coated with short chain polyethylene glycols to reduce non-specic adsorption, and optimize the system for targeted capture. Specic interactions are measured between biotin and avidin, a model two-protein system, and then between BSA and AntiBSA, aclinically relevant immunogenic interaction.

Author

• Hughes, Adam Stephen

Language

• en

Keyword

• modeling
• Python
• spectral reflectance
• biosensing
• nanoparticles
• fiber optics

Date created

• 2015

Type of Work

• Dissertation

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Physics

Degree

• Ph.D.

Advisor

• Reeves, Mark E

Committee Member(s)

• Qiu, Xiangyun
• Zeng, Chen
• Lan, Ganhui
• Jeremic, Aleksandar

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/ww72bb58w