Plasmonic Biosensors
A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Biosensors".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 February 2023) | Viewed by 15642
Special Issue Editors
Interests: chemical and biological sensors and systems; plasmonics; catalysis; sensors research involving utilizing acoustic wave devices
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Plasmonic materials interact with light to produce collective oscillations of free charges at the boundaries between metal and dielectric, which are often categorized into two classes: propagating surface plasmons (PSP) and localized surface plasmon (LSP) resonance. Since the first demonstration of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors to study processes at the surfaces of metals in the early 1980s, SPR biosensors have made vast technological and commercial advances. Different formats of plasmon resonance are implemented for sensing biomolecules and for studying their interactions and properties. One common mechanism is detecting the change in the SPR response due to the slightest modification of the refractive index of dielectric medium upon bimolecular binding. Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) supported by metallic nanoparticles is another powerful technique for highly sensitive biosensing. Using LSPR to focus the electromagnetic field at nanoscale is extensively applied in numerous surface-enhanced spectroscopic processes, such as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and metal enhanced fluorescence (MEF), to detect molecules of biological relevance. The distance dependence of the enhanced electromagnetic field around plasmonic nanoparticles and the LSPR wavelength-shift due to change in medium have been employed for real-time sensitive detection of different biomolecules and their interactions. Reversible conformational changes of unlabeled proteins, sensing of single biomolecules, label-free detection of enzyme-reactant interactions, and nucleic acid detection are a few examples of LSPR-based sensing. Photothermal properties of plasmonic nanoparticles provide another attractive avenue for sensing. Photothermal gold nanoparticles are used to achieve ultrafast real-rime bioassays based on nucleic acid amplification and quantification via polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The ease of integrating LSPR biosensors in miniaturized optical platforms has led to a surge of interest in integrating those in a portable point of care (PoC) diagnostic or spectroscopy platform. Integrability with microfluidic systems, multiplexing, and high-throughput label-free real-time analysis of molecular interaction offer major advantages for developing PoC plasmonic devices. However, there are some major limitations which need to be addressed in future research for effective PoC devices based on LSPR biosensing. Some of those challenges are the absorptive losses inherent in some plasmonic metals, specificity of analyte recognition, and the difficulty in immobilizing the target molecule near the plasmonic nanoparticles. While label-free detection is a key advantage in plasmonic biosensing, additional sensor system level advances are needed to address the influence of nonspecific interactions on the plasmonic signal. Finally, theoretical developments at the classical, semi-classical, and quantum mechanical levels for the above-described plasmonic phenomena will lead to better sensor designs. Utilization of any of the above phenomena towards plasmonic biosensing is of interest to this Special Issue, and such contributions are invited.
Prof. Dr. Venkat R. Bhethanabotla
Prof. Dr. Sanchari Chowdhury
Guest Editors
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