• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.198-203
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• 2011

We have conducted a theoretical study to improve the detection limit of a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor by co-localizing plasmonic fields and target molecules of interest. The fields were localized by nanograting antennas, while target molecules that participate in a molecular interaction were assumed to be co-localized by angled evaporation of a dielectric mask layer on the nanograting antennas. We have performed the evaluation using an overlap integral between distributions of plasmon fields and molecules and confirmed the correlation of the overlap with the sensitivity of an SPR sensor. Based on the calculated sensor characteristics, it was found that the sensitivity, if the fields and molecules are co-localized, can be as much as ten times that of non-colocalized structure.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2009

In the past decade, we have observed rapid advances in the development of biochips in many fields including medical and environmental monitoring. Biochip experiments involve immobilizing a ligand on a solid substrate surface, and monitoring its interaction with an analyte in a sample solution. Metal nanoparticles can display extinction bands on their surfaces. These charge density oscillations are simply known as the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). The high sensitivity of LSPR has been utilized to design biochips for the label-free detection of biomolecular interactions with various ligands. LSPR-based optical biochips and biosensors are easy to fabricate, and the apparatus cost for the evaluation of optical characteristics is lower than that for the conventional surface plasmon resonance apparatus. Furthermore, the operation procedure has become more convenient as it does not require labeling procedure. In this paper, we review the recent advances in LSPR research and also describe the LSPR-based optical biosensor constructed with a core-shell dielectric nanoparticle biochip for its application to label-free biomolecular detections such as antigen-antibody interaction.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.127-131
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• 2008

A refractometric glucose biosensor incorporating a vertically coupled microring resonator in polymers was proposed and realized. The ring was covered with a target analyte of glucose solution with a certain concentration, so that its effective refractive index could be altered and, as a result, the resonance wavelength of the sensor was shifted. Therefore the concentration of the glucose solution can be estimated by observing the shift in the resonance wavelength. Two schemes were exploited for enhancing the sensitivity of the sensor. First, the effective refractive index of the polymeric waveguide used for the resonator sensor was adjusted to approach that of the target analyte as best as possible. Second, the ring waveguide, which serves as a crucial sensing part, was appropriately over-etched to enlarge its contact area with the analyte. The proposed resonator sensor was designed with the beam propagation method. The refractive indices of the core and cladding polymer involved were 1.430 and 1.375 respectively, leading to the waveguide's effective refractive index of ${\sim}1.390$, which is faiirly close to that of the glucose solution of ${\sim}1.333$. The prepared ring resonator with the $400-{\mu}m$ radius exhibited the free spectral range of 0.66 nm, the bandwidth of 0.15 nm, and the quality factor of 10,000. For the sensor operating at 1,550 nm wavelength, the achieved sensitivity was as great as 0.28 pm/(mg/dL), which is equivalent to 200 nm/RIU.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.157-162
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• 2006

In this study, a high sensitive giant magnetoresistance-spin valve (GMR-SV) bio-sensing device with high linearity and very low hysteresis was fabricated by photolithography and ion beam deposition sputtering system. Detection of the Fe-hemoglobin inside in a red blood and magnetic nanoparticles using the GMR-SV bio-sensing device was investigated. Here a human's red blood includes hemoglobin, and the nanoparticles are the Co-ferrite magnetic particles coated with a shell of amorphous silica which the average size of the water-soluble bare cobalt nanoparticles was about 9 nm with total size of about 50 nm. When 1 mA sensing current was applied to the current electrode in the patterned active GMR-SV devices with areas of $5x10{\mu}m^2 $ and $2x6{\mu}m^2 $, the output signals of the GMRSV sensor were about 100 mV and 14 mV, respectively. In addition, the maximum sensitivity of the fabricated GMR-SV sensor was about $0.1{\sim}0.8%/Oe$. The magnitude of output voltage signals was obtained from four-probe magnetoresistive measured system, and the picture of real-time motion images was monitored by an optical microscope. Even one drop of human blood and nanopartices in distilled water were found to be enough for detecting and analyzing their signals clearly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Dyers and Finishers Conference
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• 2010.03a
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• pp.40-40
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• 2010

Studies on attractive color changing property of dye chromophore and fluorophore have been greatly enjoyed in the related industrial and research fields such as optoelectronics, chemosensor, biosensor and so on. The optical property based on D-$\Pi$-A intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) system of chromophore molecules can be utilized as suitable sensing probes for checking media polarity and determining colorimetric chemosensing effect, especially heavy metal detection. These finding are obtained by absorption and emission properties. In this work, donor-acceptor D-$\Pi$-A type fluorescent dyes were designed and synthesized with the corresponding donor and acceptor groups. The selected donor moieties might be provided prominent amorphous properties which are very useful in designing and synthesizing functional polymers and in fabricating devices. Another reasons to choose are commercial availabilities in high purity and low price. Donor-bridge-acceptor (D-A) type dyes can produce impressive optical-physical properties, yielding them potentially suitable for applications in the synthesis of small functional organic molecules. Small organic functional molecules have unique advantages, such as better solubility, amorphous character, and represent an area of research which needs to be explored and developed. Currently, their applications in metalorganic compounds is rapidly expanding and becoming widespread in self-assembly processes, photoluminescence applications, chiral organocatalysts, and ingrafts with nanomaterials. Colloidal nanoparticles have received great attentions in recent years. The photophysical properties of nanoparticles, particularly in terms of brightness, photostability, emission color purity and broad adsorption range, are very attractive functions in many applications. To our knowledge background, colloidal nanoparticles have been enjoyed their applications in bio-probe research fields. This research interest can be raised by the advantages of the materials such as high photoluminescence quantum yields, sharp emission band, long-term photostability and broad excitation spectra. In recent, the uses of nanoparticles being embedded in a polymer matrix and binded on polymer surface have been explored and their properties such as photo-activation and strong photoluminescence have been proposed. The prepared chromophores and nanoparticles were investigated with absorption and emission properties, solvatochromic behaviors, pH induced color switching effects, chemosensing effects and HOMO/LUMO energy potentials with computer simulation. In addition, synthesized fluorophore dyes and particles were applied onto PE/Aramid fiber fluorescing colorations. And the related details were then discussed.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.17-37
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• 2011

The microcantilever (MCL) sensor is one of the most promising platforms for next-generation label-free biosensing applications. It outperforms conventional label-free detection methods in terms of portability and parallelization. In this paper, an overview of recent advances in our understanding of the coupling between biomolecular interactions and MCL responses is given. A dual compact optical MCL sensing platform was built to enable biosensing experiments both in gas-phase environments and in solutions. The thermal bimorph effect was found to be an effective nanomanipulator for the MCL platform calibration. The study of the alkanethiol self-assembly monolayer (SAM) chain length effect revealed that 1-octanethiol ($C_8H_{17}SH$) induced a larger deflection than that from 1-dodecanethiol ($C_{12}H_{25}SH$) in solutions. Using the clinically relevant biomarker C-reactive protein (CRP), we revealed that the analytical sensitivity of the MCL reached a diagnostic level of $1{\sim}500{\mu}g/ml$ within a 7% coefficient of variation. Using grazing incident x-ray diffractometer (GIXRD) analysis, we found that the gold surface was dominated by the (111) crystalline plane. Moreover, using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis, we confirmed that the Au-S covalent bonds occurred in SAM adsorption whereas CRP molecular bindings occurred in protein analysis. First principles density functional theory (DFT) simulations were also used to examine biomolecular adsorption mechanisms. Multiscale modeling was then developed to connect the interactions at the molecular level with the MCL mechanical response. The alkanethiol SAM chain length effect in air was successfully predicted using the multiscale scheme.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.378-386
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• 2007

Bio-sensing devices, which are basically integrated and miniaturized assay systems consisted of bioreceptor and signal transducer, are advantageous in several ways. In addition to their high sensitivity, selectivity, simplicity, multi-detection capability, and real time detection abilities, they are both very small and require relatively inexpensive equipments. Two core technologies are required to develop bio-sensing devices; the fabrication of biological receptor module (both of receptor development and immobilisation of them) and the development of signal transducing instruments containing signal generation technique. Various biological receptors, such as enzymes, DNA/RNA, protein, and cell were tried to develop bio-sensing devices. And, the signal transducing instruments have also been extensively studied, especially with regard to electrochemical, optical, and mass sensitive transducers. This article addresses bio-sensing devices that have been developed in the past few years, and also discusses possible future major trends in these devices.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.369-374
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• 2008

A novel fiber optic surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor using cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) prism with the spectral modulation is presented. The SPR sensor chip is fabricated using the SU-8 photolithography, Ni-electroplating and COC injection molding process. The sidewall of the COC prism is partially deposited with Au/Cr (45/2.nm thickness) by e-beam evaporator, and the thermal bonding process is conducted for micro fluidic channels and optical fibers alignment. The SPR spectrum for a phosphate buffered saline (0.1.M PBS, pH.7.2) solution shows a distinctive dip at 1300.nm wavelength, which shifts toward longer wavelength with respect to the bovine serum albumin (BSA)concentrations. The sensitivity of the wavelength shift is $1.16\;nm{\cdot}{\mu}g^{-1}{\cdot}{\mu}l^{-1}$. From the wavelength of SPR dips, the refractive indices (RI) of the BSA solutions can be theoretically calculated using Kretchmann configuration, and the change rate of the RI was found to be $2.3{\times}10^{-5}RI{\cdot}{\mu}g^{-1}{\cdot}l^{-1}$. The realized fiber optic SPR sensor with a COC prism has clearly shown the feasibility of a new disposable, low cost and miniaturized SPR biosensor for biochemical molecular analyses.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.222-227
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• 2008

In this work we have studied the antifouling properties of the hydrophobic sol-gel modified sensing membrane and its optical properties for sensor application. E. coli JM109, B. cereus 318 and P. pastoris X-33 were cultivated in confocal cultivation dishes with glass surface, respectively. The glass surface was coated with the hydrophobic sol-gels prepared by the dimethoxy-dimethyl-silane (DiMe-DMOS) and tetramethyl-orthosilicate (TMOS). After cultivation, microorganisms adhered on the surface coated with sol-gels and glass surface were dyed by gram-staining method and the numbers of microorganisms were analyzed based on the image data of the scanning electronic microscope (SEM). A great number of microorganisms, about $2{\sim}3{\times}10^4/mm^2$, was adhered on the glass surfaces which no hydrophobic sol-gels were coated. However, the antifouling effect of the hydrophobic sol-gels was large, that microorganisms of less than $200{\sim}300/mm^2$ were adhered on the coated glass surface. The performance of the sensing membranes for detection of pH and dissolved oxygen was enhanced by recoating the light insulation layer prepared with the mixture of the hydrophobic sol-gel and graphite particles.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.331-337
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• 2022

Raman spectroscopy is an optical technique that can identify molecules in a label-free manner, and is therefore heavily investigated in various areas ranging from biomedical engineering to materials science. Probe-based Raman spectroscopy can perform minimally invasive chemical analysis, and thus has potential as a real-time diagnostic tool during surgery. In this study, Raman experimentation was calibrated by examining the Raman shifts with respect to the concentrations of chemical substances. Raman signal characteristics, targeted for normal mice and cerebral tissues of the 5xFAD dementia mutant model with accumulated amyloid beta plaques, were measured and analyzed to explore the possibility of diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. The application to the diagnosis of dementia was cross-validated by measuring Raman signals of amyloid beta. The results suggest the potential of Raman spectroscopy as a diagnostic tool that may be useful in various areas of application.