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Ultrasensitive detection and characterization of biomolecules using superchiral fields

Nature Nanotechnology volume 5, pages 783–787 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

The spectroscopic analysis of large biomolecules is important in applications such as biomedical diagnostics and pathogen detection1,2, and spectroscopic techniques can detect such molecules at the nanogram level or lower. However, spectroscopic techniques have not been able to probe the structure of large biomolecules with similar levels of sensitivity. Here, we show that superchiral electromagnetic fields3, generated by the optical excitation of plasmonic planar chiral metamaterials4,5, are highly sensitive probes of chiral supramolecular structure. The differences in the effective refractive indices of chiral samples exposed to left- and right-handed superchiral fields are found to be up to 106 times greater than those observed in optical polarimetry measurements, thus allowing picogram quantities of adsorbed molecules to be characterized. The largest differences are observed for biomolecules that have chiral planar sheets, such as proteins with high β-sheet content, which suggests that this approach could form the basis for assaying technologies capable of detecting amyloid diseases and certain types of viruses.

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Figure 1: Changes induced in the chiral plasmonic resonances of the PCM are readily detected using CD spectroscopy.
Figure 2: Finite element modelling of the local electromagnetic fields around the PCMs.
Figure 3: Values of ΔΔλ and ΔλAV induced by the adsorption of chiral materials.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Medical Research Council (MRC), Diamond Light Source Ltd and the University of Glasgow. The authors also thank the technical support staff of the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre (University of Glasgow).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter, EX4 4QL, UK

    E. Hendry & R. V. Mikhaylovskiy

  2. School of Chemistry, Joseph Black Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK

    T. Carpy, J. Johnston, M. Popland, A. J. Lapthorn, L. D. Barron & M. Kadodwala

  3. Division of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering, Rankine Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8LT, UK

    J. Johnston & N. Gadegaard

  4. College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, Institute of Molecular, Cell & Systems Biology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK

    S. M. Kelly

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  1. E. Hendry
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Contributions

M.K. conceived and designed the experiments. T.C., J.J., M.P. and S.K. performed the experiments. R.V.M. and E.H. performed numerical simulations. J.J. and N.G. fabricated the PCMs. E.H., L.D.B. and M.K. analysed the data. A.L. and S.M.K. contributed materials/analysis tools. E.H., A.L., S.M.K., N.G., L.D.B. and M.K. co-wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to M. Kadodwala.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Hendry, E., Carpy, T., Johnston, J. et al. Ultrasensitive detection and characterization of biomolecules using superchiral fields. Nature Nanotech 5, 783–787 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.209

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