Integrating plasmonic diagnostics and microfluidics

Plasmonics is generally divided into two categories: surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of electromagnetic modes propagating along a (noble) metal/dielectric interface and localized SPRs (LSPRs) on nanoscopic metallic structures (particles, rods, shells, holes, etc.). Both optical transducer concepts can be combined with and integrated in microfluidic devices for biomolecular analyte detections, with the benefits of small foot-print for point-of-care detection, low-cost for one-time disposal, and ease of being integrated into an array format. The key technologies in such integration include the plasmonic chip, microfluidic channel fabrication, surface bio-functionalization, and selection of the detection scheme, which are selected according to the specifics of the targeting analytes. This paper demonstrates a few examples of the many versions of how to combine plasmonics and integrated microfluidics, using different plasmonic generation mechanisms for different analyte detections. One example is a DNA sensor array using a gold film as substrate and surface plasmon fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy as the transduction method. This is then compared to grating-coupled SPR for poly(ethylene glycol) thiol interaction detected by angle interrogation, gold nanohole based LSPR chip for biotin-strepavidin detection by wavelength shift, and gold nanoholes/nanopillars for the detection of prostate specific antigen by quantum dot labels excited by the LSPR. Our experimental results exemplified that the plasmonic integrated microfluidics is a promising tool for understanding the biomolecular interactions and molecular recognition process as well as biosensing, especially for on-site or point-of-care diagnostics.