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Evanescent single-molecule biosensing with quantum-limited precision

Nature Photonics volume 11, pages 477–481 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Sensors that are able to detect and track single unlabelled biomolecules are an important tool to understand biomolecular dynamics and interactions as well as for medical diagnostics operating at their ultimate detection limits1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Recently, exceptional sensitivity has been achieved using the strongly enhanced evanescent fields provided by optical microcavities2,4,5,8 and plasmonic resonators1,6,7. However, at high field intensities, photodamage to the biological specimen becomes increasingly problematic9,10,11,12. Here, we introduce an evanescent biosensor that operates at the fundamental precision limit due to the quantization of light. This allows a four orders of magnitude reduction in optical intensity, while maintaining state-of-the-art sensitivity. It enables quantum noise-limited tracking of single biomolecules as small as 3.5 nm, and monitoring of surface–molecule interactions over extended periods. By achieving quantum noise-limited precision, our approach provides a path towards quantum-enhanced single-molecule biosensors.

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Figure 1: Experimental set-up.
Figure 2: Quantum noise-limited region.
Figure 3: Nanoparticle detection.
Figure 4: Biomolecule detection.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project (contract no. DP140100734) and by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development (grant no. FA2386-14-1-4046). W.P.B. acknowledges support through the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship scheme FF140100650. M.A.T. is supported by a fellowship from the Human Frontiers Science Program. The authors also thank B.-B. Li, J. D. Swaim and Y. Gagnepain for useful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mathematics and Physics, the University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 4072, Australia

    N. P. Mauranyapin, L. S. Madsen, M. A. Taylor, M. Waleed & W. P. Bowen

  2. Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems, the University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 4072, Australia

    L. S. Madsen & W. P. Bowen

  3. Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna, 1030, Austria

    M. A. Taylor

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  1. N. P. Mauranyapin
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  5. W. P. Bowen
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Contributions

W.P.B. conceived and led the project. M.A.T. contributed towards the conceptual design. N.P.M. performed the experiments and data analysis, with contributions from L.S.M. Samples were prepared by N.P.M. and M.W. The manuscript was written by N.P.M., W.P.B. and L.S.M.

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Correspondence to W. P. Bowen.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Mauranyapin, N., Madsen, L., Taylor, M. et al. Evanescent single-molecule biosensing with quantum-limited precision. Nature Photon 11, 477–481 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2017.99

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