A parylene-mediated plasmonic-photonic hybrid fiber-optic sensor and its instrumentation for miniaturized and self-referenced biosensing

Analyst. 2023 Apr 11;148(8):1672-1681. doi: 10.1039/d3an00028a.

Abstract

With the development of advanced nanofabrication techniques over the past decades, different nanostructure-based plasmonic fiber-optic sensors have been developed and have presented a low limit of detection for various biomolecules. However, owing to both the dependence on complex equipment and the trade-off between the fabrication cost and sensing performance, nanostructured plasmonic fiber-optic sensors are rarely used outside laboratories. To facilitate wider application of the plasmonic fiber-optic sensors, a parylene-mediated hybrid plasmonic-photonic cavity-based sensor was developed. Compared with a similar plasmonic sensor which only works in the plasmonic mode, the proposed hybrid sensor shows a higher reproducibility (CV < 2.5%) due to its resistance to fabrication variations. Meanwhile, a self-referenced detection mechanism and a novel miniaturized system were developed to adapt to the hybrid resonance sensor. The entire system only has a weight of 263 g, and a size of 12 cm × 10 cm × 8 cm, and is especially suitable for outdoor applications in a handheld manner. In experiments, a high refractive index sensitivity of 3.148 RIU-1 and real-time biomolecule monitoring at nanomolar concentrations were achieved by the proposed system, further confirming the potential of the miniaturized system as a candidate for point-of-care health diagnostics outside laboratories.

MeSH terms

  • Biosensing Techniques* / instrumentation
  • Fiber Optic Technology* / instrumentation
  • Gold
  • Metal Nanoparticles
  • Reproducibility of Results

Substances

  • parylene
  • Gold