title: Highly sensitive biosensor based on UV-imprinted layered polymeric-inorganic composite waveguides.
abstract: An evanescent field sensor utilizing layered polymeric-inorganic composite waveguide configuration was developed in this work. The composite waveguide structure consists of a UV-imprint patterned polymer inverted rib waveguide with a Ta2O5 thin film sputter-deposited on top of the low refractive index polymer layers. The results suggest that the polymer based sensor can achieve a detection limit of 3 × 10(-7) RIU for refractive index sensing and corresponding limit of about 100 fg/mm2 for molecular adsorption detection. Besides enhancing the sensitivity significantly, the inorganic coating on the polymer layer was found to block water absorption effectively into the waveguide resulting in a stabilized sensor operation. The ability to use the developed sensor in specific molecular detection was confirmed by investigating antibody - antigen binding reactions. The results of this work demonstrate that high performance sensing capability can be obtained with the developed composite waveguide sensor.
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics and Measurement Techniques Laboratory, University of Oulu, PO Box 4500, 90014 Finland. meng.wang@ee.oulu.fi
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jussi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hiltunen
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liedert
authors.forename: Stuart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pearce
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Charlton
authors.forename: Leena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hakalahti
authors.forename: Pentti
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Karioja
authors.forename: Risto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Myllylä
mesh_terms: D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007118:Immunoassay / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007287:Inorganic Chemicals / Q000737:chemistry*; D054802:Molecular Imprinting / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance / Q000295:instrumentation*
chemical_list: D007287:Inorganic Chemicals; D011108:Polymers