Tamm Plasmon Resonance Responsiveness to SARS-CoV-2 Virus-Like Particles

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that Tamm plasmon resonance devices can selectively detect SARS-CoV-2 virus-like particles by monitoring spectral and amplitude changes, offering a label-free method for virus detection and interaction analysis.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel Tamm plasmon-based sensor that detects SARS-CoV-2 VLPs through resonance depth attenuation and a new displacement angle metric, enhancing bioresponsive detection capabilities.

Findings

Resonance depth decreases with VLP concentration.

Displacement angle alpha correlates with VLP levels.

Sensor distinguishes native viral proteins from denatured forms.

Abstract

Bioresponsive optical materials that transduce nanoscale biointerface events into measurable spectral signals are of growing interest for sensing and antiviral technologies Here we show that a Tamm plasmon TP device consisting of a SiOTiO distributed Bragg reflector capped with a nanostructured silver layer exhibits a selective and structure dependent response to SARSCoV2 virus like particles VLPs Upon VLP exposure the conventional wavelength shift delta lambda of the TP resonance is minimal whereas the resonance depth undergoes a systematic attenuation To capture both spectral and amplitude variations we introduce a displacement angle alpha defined from the translation vector of the Tamm dip before and after exposure The angle alpha increases monotonically with VLP concentration and enables a limit of detection of 13 ng per mL Control experiments with polystyrene nanoparticles of similar size and with heat denatured VLPs yield negligible changes indicating sensitivity to the native conformational state of viral surface proteins rather than to generic nanoparticle morphology or bulk refractive index effects These results establish Tamm plasmon structures as promising bioresponsive platforms for label free detection and for probing structure dependent virus material interactions.