Since the ECL phenomenon with ruthenium(II) trisbipyridine (Ru(bpy) 3 2+ : Ru-chelate) in an aqueous solution was identified by Rubinstein in 1981 1 , Bard and his coworkers showed many applications of ECL for the measurement of chemical and/or biological substances such as oxalate and total DNA measurement. [2][3][4][5] A preliminary ECL immunoassay was reported by Bard in 1984, using a newly synthesized Ru-chelate having N-hydroxysuccinimide residue (Ru-chelate-NHS), which enabled the protein moiety to be labeled 6 (Fig. 1). Further studies on ECL immunoassays were carried out by Igen International. In 1990, Leland improved the sensitivity of ECL detection by adding tripropylamine (TPA) to the electrolyte solution; this showed a strong reductant activity after electrochemical oxidation.7 This catalytic reaction of oxidized TPA extended the detection limit of the Ru-chelate to 0.2 pmol, which was approximately 10 thousand times more sensitive than that initially reported by Ege in 1984. 8 Meanwhile, the first actual ECL immunoassay was reported by Ikariyama et al. in 1985, using the pyrene labeled human serum albumin (HSA) as the competitive and homogeneous immunoassay method. 9 Their report demonstrated that the intensities of the photon emission were correlated with the amounts of the analyte antigen that did not emit the photon.Generally, an electrochemical reaction occurs within a limited reaction layer, the so-called electrical double layer and/or the electrical diffuse layer at several nm distances from the surface of the working electrode (WE). Consequently, the ECL emission might be interfered with by the increase in molecule size of the labeled HSA, if they bonded with the corresponding antibody molecule having a size of ten and several nm. Thus, the major ECL emission reported by Ikariyama et al. might be caused by non-reacted labeled HAS, because its molecular size is approximately 30% of the labeled HSA binding with the antibody.Based on the above considerations, only an extremely small quantity of the analyte that contacts with the sur- The newer electrochemiluminescence (ECL) immunoassay system was established by using both an antibody coated on paramagnetic micro-beads (Capt-MB) as a carrier of the immunoassay and an antibody labeled with ruthenium(II) trisbipyridine-NHS (Ru-Ab). The ECL excitations were designed to be generated upon the surface of the working electrode which collected the reacted Capt-MB by magnetic force. As a model of the immunoassay, the reaction between alphafetoprotein (AFP) and anti-AFP antibodies was used in accordance with the so-called sandwich method, where the sandwich conformation of AFP-(Ru-Ab) was made on the surface of the Capt-MB. The ECL immunoassay system revealed the following results: a) the ECL signal intensity was obtained in proportion to the AFP concentration of each specimen; b) the dynamic range of this ECL immunoassay system was extended to 10000 times of magnitude in the 2-step assay; and c) the detection sensitivity reached to the level of 5 pg...