EAGER: Robotized Plasmonic Nanosensors for High-Throughput Biochemical Detection
Goal:
The goal of the proposal is to explore an innovative paradigm for robotizing Plasmonic Nanosensors for high-throughput detection of ultralow-concentration molecules.
Nanosensors with ultra-sensitivity and high throughput are pivotal for early-stage disease diagnosis. Significant efforts have advanced nanosensors with single-molecule sensitivity owing to the unique physical properties of nanoscale materials. However, the high sensitivity of nanosensors comes at the expense of an adversely long detection time for low-concentration biomolecules. It is due to the low probability of dilute molecules to attach to nano-sized objects. Therefore, both the effects of the high-sensitivity and low-detection speed result from the miniaturized dimensions of nanosensors. This pressing issue has greatly hindered the practical application of nano-biosensors. In this work, the PI proposes to explore an innovative concept of robotized plasmonic nanosensors for enhancing the detection throughput via active mechanical rotation while retaining the high sensitivity. If successful, this work can accelerate the reality of point-of-care diagnosis and early cancer detection that improve people's healthcare. It will also benefit our next-generation from undergraduate to graduate levels with special promotions to the underrepresented female students in engineering. Organization of a symposium at the Materials Research Society Meeting by the PI will gather leading researchers from both academia and industry in this fast developing field for accelerating technological discovery and transfer.
The objective of this research is to explore an innovative paradigm for robotizing plasmonic nanosensors for high-throughput detection of ultralow-concentration molecules. Significant efforts have advanced nanoscale sensors with single-molecule sensitivity. However, the nanoscale features of sensors, which enable ultrasensitive detection, also result in a low detection speed due to the intrinsic low-attachment probability of molecules to the small available sensing areas. The difficulties are compounded further by the complex fabrication and integration of the nanosensors to existing systems, such as microfluidics, for practical applications. In this proof-of-concept project, an attempt will be made to robotize plasmonic nanosensors into highly controllable nanomotors to address the aforementioned challenges. The sensors will be assembled and actuated into motorized sensors by utilizing the electric tweezers an efficient nanomanipulation technique, based on the combined AC and DC electric fields, developed by the PI recently. The greatly enhanced detection speed for ultralow-concentration molecules is expected owing to the effective fluidic convection as a result of the controlled mechanical rotation of the nanosensors, which could accelerate the affiliation equilibrium of analyte molecules with the surfaces of nanosensors. Since no such kind of systems has been investigated previously and the mechanisms have not been tested or proved, this proposal will present high risk, while potentially transformative.
If successful, the proposed research will innovatively integrate and actuate plasmonic-active nanoparticles into functional nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) devices for enhanced biochemical detection, representing a new advance of optical nanosensors from a passive/static fashion to a dynamic/actuatable fashion. The concept and advantages of the robotized optical sensors, if approved, should be applicable and transformative to all types of nanosensors.
