Nanoroughened plasmonic films for enhanced biosensing detection

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that nanoroughened silver plasmonic films significantly enhance fluorescence signals in biosensing, achieving over 40-fold amplification in DNA microarrays using standard optical devices.

Contribution

It introduces a novel nanoroughened silver film coating technique that markedly improves biosensing sensitivity through plasmonic interactions.

Findings

Over 40-fold fluorescence signal enhancement in DNA microarrays

Effective use of standard optical scanners for detection

Nanoroughened silver films improve biosensing sensitivity

Abstract

Although fluorescence is the prevailing labeling technique in biosensing applications, sensitivity improvement is still a striving challenge. We show that coating standard microscope slides with nanoroughened silver films provides a high fluorescence signal enhancement due to plasmonic interactions. As a proof of concept, we applied these films with tailored plasmonic properties to DNA microarrays. Using common optical scanning devices, we achieved signal amplifications by more than 40-fold.