title: Dip biosensor based on localized surface plasmon resonance at the tip of an optical fiber.
abstract: A dip biosensor is realized by depositing metallic nanoparticles onto the tip of a cleaved optical fiber. Light coupled into the fiber interacts with the localized surface plasmons within the nanoparticles at the tip; a portion of the scattered light recouples into the optical fiber and is analyzed by a spectrometer. Characterization of the sensor demonstrates an inverse relationship between the sensitivity and the number of particles deposited onto the surface, with smaller quantities leading to greater sensitivity. The results obtained showed also that by depositing nanoparticles with distinct localized surface plasmon resonance signatures with limited overlap, as for the case of gold and silver nanospheres, a multiplexed dip biosensor can be realized by simply functionalizing the different nanoparticles with different antibodies after the fashion of an immunoassay. In this way different localized surface plasmons resonance bands responsive to different target analytes can be separately monitored, as further presented below, requiring a minimal quantity of reagents both for the functionalization process and for the sample analysis.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing and School of Chemistry and Physics, The University of Adelaide , Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.
authors.forename: Beniamino
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sciacca
authors.forename: Tanya M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Monro
mesh_terms: D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D055100:Optical Fibers; D010316:Particle Size; D012834:Silver / Q000737:chemistry*; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance / Q000295:instrumentation; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D012834:Silver; D006046:Gold