title: Label-free, single molecule resonant cavity detection: a double-blind experimental study.
abstract: Optical resonant cavity sensors are gaining increasing interest as a potential diagnostic method for a range of applications, including medical prognostics and environmental monitoring. However, the majority of detection demonstrations to date have involved identifying a "known" analyte, and the more rigorous double-blind experiment, in which the experimenter must identify unknown solutions, has yet to be performed. This scenario is more representative of a real-world situation. Therefore, before these devices can truly transition, it is necessary to demonstrate this level of robustness. By combining a recently developed surface chemistry with integrated silica optical sensors, we have performed a double-blind experiment to identify four unknown solutions. The four unknown solutions represented a subset or complete set of four known solutions; as such, there were 256 possible combinations. Based on the single molecule detection signal, we correctly identified all solutions. In addition, as part of this work, we developed noise reduction algorithms.
authors.affiliation: Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, 3651 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. chistiak@usc.edu.
authors.forename: Maria V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Chistiakova
authors.affiliation: Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, 3651 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. cshi@usc.edu.
authors.forename: Ce
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, 3651 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. armani@usc.edu.
authors.forename: Andrea M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Armani
mesh_terms: D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D036103:Nanotechnology; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry; D012996:Solutions / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D012996:Solutions; D012822:Silicon Dioxide