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Plasmonic Trapping and Release of Nanoparticles in a Monitoring Environment
Published on: April 4, 2017
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A highly tunable and fully biocompatible silk nanoplasmonic optical sensor.
Myungjae Lee1,2, Heonsu Jeon1,2, Sunghwan Kim1,2
1†Department of Physics and Astronomy and Inter-University Semiconductor Research Center and ‡Department of Biophysics and Chemical Biology, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-747, Republic of Korea.
Nano Letters
|March 31, 2015
Summary
Researchers developed a biocompatible silk-based plasmonic sensor for real-time analyte monitoring. This novel silk plasmonic absorber sensor (SPAS) demonstrates high sensitivity for applications in biological and chemical sensing.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical engineering
- Materials science
- Nanotechnology
Background:
- Plasmonic devices offer potential for sensitive analyte detection.
- Biocompatibility and tunability are key challenges for in vivo applications.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a biocompatible and highly tunable plasmonic sensor using natural silk protein and gold nanostructures.
- To investigate the sensor's performance for real-time monitoring in biological and chemical research.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of a metal-insulator-metal resonator using silk protein as the insulating spacer and substrate.
- Utilizing the hydrogel properties of silk to control swelling with water-alcohol mixtures.
- Experimental and numerical analysis of spectral shifts in reflectance minima due to silk spacer volume and refractive index changes.
Main Results:
- Demonstrated a silk plasmonic absorber sensor (SPAS) with tunable plasmonic resonances.
- Observed significant spectral shifts in reflectance minima correlated with silk spacer swelling.
- Achieved high sensitivity (1200 nm/RIU) and relative intensity change when applied as a glucose sensor.
Conclusions:
- The silk-based plasmonic sensor is biocompatible, tunable, and highly sensitive.
- The controllable swelling of the silk spacer enables precise spectral shifts for sensing applications.
- SPAS shows great promise for real-time, in vivo analyte monitoring in biomedical and biological research.
