A novel portable surface plasmon resonance based imaging instrument for on-site multi-analyte detection

In the last decade the need for portable Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) biosensors capable of on-site simultaneous multiple assays increased steadily. Several devices are available affected, however, by limitations in terms of costs, size, complexity and portability. A compact low-cost SPRi biosensor based on a novel method for multi-analyte detection is presented. The prototype consists of a nanohole array biochip integrated with a compact optics and an elaboration system. A CMOS image sensor captures reflected light from the biochip surface irradiated by a 830 nm LED. The entire system is managed by an ARM9 processor. The biosensor was able to detect a ~10^-5 RIU change in the refractive index without analyte receptors at a glycerol concentration equal to 0.2%. Results are available in 14 seconds on LCD display and immediately stored to external SD memory. Preliminary experiments confirmed the strong biosensor´s usability in a wide range of applications and fields.