Bacteria detection using disposable optical leaky waveguide sensors.
Novel disposable absorbing material clad leaky waveguide sensor devices (LWD) have been developed for the detection of pathogenic particles such as bacteria. These chips are tailored to give the maximum extension of the evanescent field at the sensor surface in order to place the entire volume of the bacteria captured by immobilized antibodies on the chip surface within this field. This in turn increases the interaction of the light with the bacteria's bulk volume. Disposable LWD chips were fabricated at room temperature and without the use of expensive fabrication equipment. These LWDs have been characterised by detecting refractive index (RI) changes, scattering and fluorescence from bacterial spores at the sensor surface when illuminated at the coupling angle. The detection limit of Bacillus subtilis var. niger (BG) bacterial spores was 10(4) spores/ml and the illumination intensity of the spores was found to be three times greater than the illumination intensity generated using the surface plasmon resonance (SPR).
Zourob
Mohammed
M
School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, The University of Manchester, PO Box 88, Sackville street, Manchester, M60 1QD, UK.
Mohr
Stephan
S
Brown
Bernard J Treves
BJ
Fielden
Peter R
PR
McDonnell
Martin B
MB
Goddard
Nicholas J
NJ
D001407:Bacillus / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D055095:Optics and Photonics / Q000295:instrumentation; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D013171:Spores, Bacterial / Q000302:isolation & purification; D014159:Transducers