BNC-B

PhD: Gerardo A. López

Director: CSIC Prof. Laura M. Lechuga Gómez and Dr Mª. Carmen Estévez Arberola

Simple and Low Cost Nanostructured Plasmonic Biosensor for Sensitive and Multiplexed Biodetection

Abstract:

The increasing demand for analytical platforms that are reliable and, at the same time, easy to use and compact, that require low sample consumption and provide high sensitivity and real-time response, have provided considerable innovation in the design of the biosensors. Among all of them, those based on surface plasmon resonance phenomena (SPR) have been the subject of great scientific interest in recent decades because they provide high sensitivity and simplicity in the detection schemes. With the advance in nanofabrication techniques, the development of optical sensors based on plasmonic nanostructures has represented an excellent way to integrate them into Lab-on-a-chip devices with a small size, with the ability to solve some of the current challenges related to the analysis times, the volume of sample required and the feasibility of detecting several analytes at the same time multiplexed.

With the purpose of offering simple and inexpensive biosensing tools, this Doctoral Thesis presents the development of nanoplasmonic biosensors integrated in Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC) platforms for the multiplexed biosensing of different analytes in real time. The developed sensor is based on the use of commercial Blu-Ray discs as a substrate containing nano-slits to generate the plasmon resonance phenomena by coating them with different metallic layers on a nanometric scale. The developed nanobiosensors are a very promising alternative that could replace conventional analysis techniques, simplifying processes and overcoming the main current challenges related to sensitivity, cost and time required for clinical diagnosis.