A novel fiber-optic biosensor based on a localized surface plasmon coupled fluorescence (LSPCF) system is proposed and developed. This biosensor consists of a biomolecular complex in a sandwich format of . It is immobilized on the surface of an optical fiber where a complex forms the fluorescence probe and is produced by mixing Cy5-labeled antibody and protein A conjugated gold nanoparticles (Au-PA). The LSPCF is excited by localized surface plasmon on the GNP surface where the evanescent field is applied near the core surface of the optical fiber. At the same time, the fluorescence signal is detected by a photomultiplier tube located beside the unclad optical fiber with high collection efficiency. Experimentally, this novel LSPCF biosensor is able to detect mouse immunoglobulin G (IgG) at a minimum concentration of 1 pg/mL (7 fM) during the biomolecular interaction of the IgG with anti-mouse IgG. The analysis is expanded by a discussion of the amplification of the LSPCF intensity by GNP coupling, and overall, this LSPCF biosensor is confirmed experimentally as a biosensor with very high sensitivity.
The mechanism of fluorescence enhancements of fiber-optic biosensor with metallic nanoparticles is studied using scattering theory of evanescent waves by a metallic nanoparticle in dilute solution approximation. High local-field enhancement in the vicinity of metallic nanoparticles resulting from localized surface plasmon excitation and the fluorescence enhancement is estimated by calculating averaged local-field enhancement and radiative-rate enhancement of fluorophores in the presence of metallic anoparticles. The metallic nanoparticles not only provide strong local field to enhance the fluorescence signal of fluorophores, but also help to scatter the fluorescence signal and to increase the far-field detectable signals of the fiber-optic biosensor. The effects of the radius of gold nanoparticles, fluorophore-particle separation, and fiber-particle separation on the fluorescence enhancement are discussed in detail.
A super-resolution near-field structure (Super-RENS) of AgO x type could perform the task of high-density near-field optical recording in a more feasible way. To further explore the optical resolution and controllability of super-RENS disks, the nearfield and far-field optical properties of the AgO x -type super-RENS embedded with random silver nanoparticles and nano cavities of different densities were studied using finite-difference time-domain simulations. The random nanostructures yielded super-resolution capability, but the surface plasmon effects generated by the random metallic nanoparticles significantly enhanced the far-field signals. A simplified Fourier optical theory was proposed to understand the relationship between the enhanced near field of random nanostructures and the super-resolution capability in the far field.
The super-resolution capability of the AgOx-type super-resolution near-field structure disk with silver nanoparticles was studied using finite-difference time-domain method at different incident light frequencies. The near fields exhibited strongly local field enhancement around silver nanoparticles in the AgOx layer due to localized surface plasmon. The subwavelength recording marks smaller than lambda/10 were distinguishable since the metallic nanoparticles with high localized fields transferred evanescent waves to detectable signals in the far field. The far-field signals from random silver nanoparticles displayed similar behaviors as those from single nanoparticle and red-shifts of peak frequencies from particle-particle interaction.
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