Optical Yagi-Uda nanoantennas

Conventional antennas, which are widely employed to transmit radio and TV signals, can be used at optical frequencies as long as they are shrunk to nanometer-size dimensions. Optical nanoantennas made of metallic or high-permittivity dielectric nanoparticles allow for enhancing and manipulating light on the scale much smaller than wavelength of light. Based on this ability, optical nanoantennas offer unique opportunities regarding key applications such as optical communications, photovoltaics, non-classical light emission, and sensing. From a multitude of suggested nanoantenna concepts the Yagi-Uda nanoantenna, an optical analogue of the well-established radio-frequency Yagi-Uda antenna, stands out by its efficient unidirectional light emission and enhancement. Following a brief introduction to the emerging field of optical nanoantennas, here we review recent theoretical and experimental activities on optical Yagi-Uda nanoantennas, including their design, fabrication, and applications. We also discuss several extensions of the conventional Yagi-Uda antenna design for broadband and tunable operation, for applications in nanophotonic circuits and photovoltaic devices

On-a-chip biosensing based on all-dielectric nanoresonators

Nanophotonics has become a key enabling technology in biomedicine with great promises in early diagnosis and less invasive therapies. In this context, the unique capability of plasmonic noble metal nanoparticles to concentrate light on the nanometer scale has widely contributed to biosensing and enhanced spectroscopy. Recently, high-refractive index dielectric nanostructures featuring low loss resonances have been proposed as a promising alternative to nanoplasmonics, potentially offering better sensing performances along with full compatibility with the microelectronics industry. In this letter we report the first demonstration of biosensing with silicon nanoresonators integrated in state-of-the-art microfluidics. Our lab-on-a-chip platform enables detecting Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) cancer marker in human serum with a sensitivity that meets clinical needs. These performances are directly compared with its plasmonic counterpart based on gold nanorods. Our work opens new opportunities in the development of future point-of-care devices towards a more personalized healthcare

A digital microarray using interferometric detection of plasmonic nanorod labels

DNA and protein microarrays are a high-throughput technology that allow the simultaneous quantification of tens of thousands of different biomolecular species. The mediocre sensitivity and dynamic range of traditional fluorescence microarrays compared to other techniques have been the technology's Achilles' Heel, and prevented their adoption for many biomedical and clinical diagnostic applications. Previous work to enhance the sensitivity of microarray readout to the single-molecule ('digital') regime have either required signal amplifying chemistry or sacrificed throughput, nixing the platform's primary advantages. Here, we report the development of a digital microarray which extends both the sensitivity and dynamic range of microarrays by about three orders of magnitude. This technique uses functionalized gold nanorods as single-molecule labels and an interferometric scanner which can rapidly enumerate individual nanorods by imaging them with a 10x objective lens. This approach does not require any chemical enhancement such as silver deposition, and scans arrays with a throughput similar to commercial fluorescence devices. By combining single-nanoparticle enumeration and ensemble measurements of spots when the particles are very dense, this system achieves a dynamic range of about one million directly from a single scan

A digital microarray using interferometric detection of plasmonic nanorod labels

DNA and protein microarrays are a high-throughput technology that allow the simultaneous quantification of tens of thousands of different biomolecular species. The mediocre sensitivity and dynamic range of traditional fluorescence microarrays compared to other techniques have been the technology's Achilles' Heel, and prevented their adoption for many biomedical and clinical diagnostic applications. Previous work to enhance the sensitivity of microarray readout to the single-molecule ('digital') regime have either required signal amplifying chemistry or sacrificed throughput, nixing the platform's primary advantages. Here, we report the development of a digital microarray which extends both the sensitivity and dynamic range of microarrays by about three orders of magnitude. This technique uses functionalized gold nanorods as single-molecule labels and an interferometric scanner which can rapidly enumerate individual nanorods by imaging them with a 10x objective lens. This approach does not require any chemical enhancement such as silver deposition, and scans arrays with a throughput similar to commercial fluorescence devices. By combining single-nanoparticle enumeration and ensemble measurements of spots when the particles are very dense, this system achieves a dynamic range of about one million directly from a single scan.First author draf

Digital microarrays: single-molecule readout with interferometric detection of plasmonic nanorod labels

DNA and protein microarrays are a high-throughput technology that allow the simultaneous quantification of tens of thousands of different biomolecular species. The mediocre sensitivity and limited dynamic range of traditional fluorescence microarrays compared to other detection techniques have been the technology’s Achilles’ heel and prevented their adoption for many biomedical and clinical diagnostic applications. Previous work to enhance the sensitivity of microarray readout to the single-molecule (“digital”) regime have either required signal amplifying chemistry or sacrificed throughput, nixing the platform’s primary advantages. Here, we report the development of a digital microarray which extends both the sensitivity and dynamic range of microarrays by about 3 orders of magnitude. This technique uses functionalized gold nanorods as single-molecule labels and an interferometric scanner which can rapidly enumerate individual nanorods by imaging them with a 10× objective lens. This approach does not require any chemical signal enhancement such as silver deposition and scans arrays with a throughput similar to commercial fluorescence scanners. By combining single-nanoparticle enumeration and ensemble measurements of spots when the particles are very dense, this system achieves a dynamic range of about 6 orders of magnitude directly from a single scan. As a proof-of-concept digital protein microarray assay, we demonstrated detection of hepatitis B virus surface antigen in buffer with a limit of detection of 3.2 pg/mL. More broadly, the technique’s simplicity and high-throughput nature make digital microarrays a flexible platform technology with a wide range of potential applications in biomedical research and clinical diagnostics.The authors wish to thank Oguzhan Avci and Jacob Trueb for thoughtful comments and suggestions regarding numerical optimization of the optical system. This work was funded in part by a research contract with ASELSAN, Inc. and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation 2010 Coulter Translational Award. (ASELSAN, Inc.; Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Coulter Translational Award)Accepted manuscrip

Homogeneous Biosensing Based on Magnetic Particle Labels

The growing availability of biomarker panels for molecular diagnostics is leading to an increasing need for fast and sensitive biosensing technologies that are applicable to point-of-care testing. In that regard, homogeneous measurement principles are especially relevant as they usually do not require extensive sample preparation procedures, thus reducing the total analysis time and maximizing ease-of-use. In this review, we focus on homogeneous biosensors for the in vitro detection of biomarkers. Within this broad range of biosensors, we concentrate on methods that apply magnetic particle labels. The advantage of such methods lies in the added possibility to manipulate the particle labels by applied magnetic fields, which can be exploited, for example, to decrease incubation times or to enhance the signal-to-noise-ratio of the measurement signal by applying frequency-selective detection. In our review, we discriminate the corresponding methods based on the nature of the acquired measurement signal, which can either be based on magnetic or optical detection. The underlying measurement principles of the different techniques are discussed, and biosensing examples for all techniques are reported, thereby demonstrating the broad applicability of homogeneous in vitro biosensing based on magnetic particle label actuation

Optically-controlled platforms for transfection and single- and sub-cellular surgery

Improving the resolution of biological research to the single- or sub-cellular level is of critical importance in a wide variety of processes and disease conditions. Most obvious are those linked to aging and cancer, many of which are dependent upon stochastic processes where individual, unpredictable failures or mutations in individual cells can lead to serious downstream conditions across the whole organism. The traditional tools of biochemistry struggle to observe such processes: the vast majority are based upon ensemble approaches analysing the properties of bulk populations, which means that the detail about individual constituents is lost. What are required, then, are tools with the precision and resolution to probe and dissect cells at the single-micron scale: the scale of the individual organelles and structures that control their function. In this review, we highlight the use of highly-focused laser beams to create systems providing precise control and specificity at the single cell or even single micron level. The intense focal points generated can directly interact with cells and cell membranes, which in conjunction with related modalities such as optical trapping provide a broad platform for the development of single and sub-cellular surgery approaches. These highly tuneable tools have demonstrated delivery or removal of material from cells of interest, but can simultaneously excite fluorescent probes for imaging purposes or plasmonic structures for very local heating. We discuss both the history and recent applications of the field, highlighting the key findings and developments over the last 40 years of biophotonics researc

Surface Plasmon Resonance for Biosensing

The rise of photonics technologies has driven an extremely fast evolution in biosensing applications. Such rapid progress has created a gap of understanding and insight capability in the general public about advanced sensing systems that have been made progressively available by these new technologies. Thus, there is currently a clear need for moving the meaning of some keywords, such as plasmonic, into the daily vocabulary of a general audience with a reasonable degree of education. The selection of the scientific works reported in this book is carefully balanced between reviews and research papers and has the purpose of presenting a set of applications and case studies sufficiently broad enough to enlighten the reader attention toward the great potential of plasmonic biosensing and the great impact that can be expected in the near future for supporting disease screening and stratification

Nanoantennas for visible and infrared radiation

Nanoantennas for visible and infrared radiation can strongly enhance the interaction of light with nanoscale matter by their ability to efficiently link propagating and spatially localized optical fields. This ability unlocks an enormous potential for applications ranging from nanoscale optical microscopy and spectroscopy over solar energy conversion, integrated optical nanocircuitry, opto-electronics and density-ofstates engineering to ultra-sensing as well as enhancement of optical nonlinearities. Here we review the current understanding of optical antennas based on the background of both well-developed radiowave antenna engineering and the emerging field of plasmonics. In particular, we address the plasmonic behavior that emerges due to the very high optical frequencies involved and the limitations in the choice of antenna materials and geometrical parameters imposed by nanofabrication. Finally, we give a brief account of the current status of the field and the major established and emerging lines of investigation in this vivid area of research.Comment: Review article with 76 pages, 21 figure