SPR biosensing is increasingly popular for the detection of a multitude of biomolecules. It offers label-free detection and study of proteins, nucleic acids, and other biomolecules in real time. A recent trend involves incorporation of AuNPs, either within the sensing surface itself or as signal enhancing tagging molecules. The importance of AuNP and detecting agent spacing is described and techniques using macromolecular spacing aids are highlighted. Recent methods to enhance SPR detection capabilities using gold nanoparticles are reviewed, as well as device fabrication and the results of incorporation. SPR detection is a highly versatile method for the detection of biomolecules and, with the incorporation of AuNPs, shows promise in extending it to a number of new applications.
Despite the numerous studies on the self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of alkylthiols on gold, the mechanisms involved, especially the nature and influence of the thiol-gold interface are still under debate. In this work the adsorption of aminothiols on Au(111) surfaces has been studied by using surface IR and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) as well as by density functional theory (DFT) modeling. Two aminothiols were used, cysteamine (CEA) and mercaptoundecylamine (MUAM), which contain two and eleven carbon atoms, respectively. By combining experimental and theoretical methods, it was possible to draw a molecular picture of the thiol-gold interface. The long-chain aminothiol produced better ordered SAMs, but, interestingly, the XPS data showed different sulfur binding environments depending on the alkyl chain length; an additional peak at low binding energy was observed upon CEA adsorption, which indicates the presence of sulfur in a different environment. DFT modeling showed that the positions of the sulfur atoms in the SAMs on gold with similar unit cells [(2√3×2√3)R30°] depended on the length of the alkyl chain. Short-chain alkylthiol SAMs were adsorbed more strongly than long-chain thiol SAMs and were shown to induce surface reconstruction by extracting atoms from the surface, possibly forming adatom/vacancy combinations that lead to the additional XPS peak. In the case of short alkylthiols, the thiol-gold interface governs the layer, CEA adsorbs strongly, and the mechanism is closer to single-molecule adsorption than self-assembly, whereas for long chains, interactions between alkyl chains drive the system to self-assembly, leading to a higher level of SAM organization and restricting the influence of the sulfur-gold interface.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.