Immunosensing with Near-Infrared Plasmonic Optical Fiber Gratings

Surface Plasmon resonance (SPR) optical fiber biosensors constitute a miniaturized counterpart to the bulky prism configuration and offer remote operation in very small volumes of analyte. They are a cost-effective and relatively straightforward technique to yield in situ (or even possibly in vivo) molecular detection. They are usually obtained from a gold-coated fiber segment for which the core-guided light is brought into contact with the surrounding medium, either by etching (or side-polishing) or by using grating coupling. Recently, SPR generation was achieved in gold-coated tilted fiber Bragg gratings (TFBGs). These sensors probe the surrounding medium with near-infrared narrowband resonances, which enhances both the penetration depth of the evanescent field in the external medium and the wavelength resolution of the interrogation. They constitute the unique configuration able to probe all the fiber cladding modes individually, with high Q-factors. We use these unique spectral features in our work to sense proteins and extra-cellular membrane receptors that are both overexpressed in cancerous tissues. Impressive limit of detection (LOD) and sensitivity are reported, which paves the way for the further use of such immunosensors for cancer diagnosis.