Chemical and Biological Sensors
The optical sensing properties of porous silicon, described in the technology section, are leveraged in the design of a versitle range of bio and chemical sensoring modalites including whole blood diagnostic devices to Smart Bandages and chemical synthesis detector.
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Whole Blood Biosensor
Because the sensor optical response is derived from within the bulk of the 3D porous matrix, the intrinisic filtering properties of PSi can be leveraged and tuned to aid in the discrimination between specific detection of target from the nonspecific binding of constituent present in the complex meilieu of a biological sample (blood, urine, sweat, saliva). |
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Smart Bandages
Techniques have been developed to release the porous silicon membrane from the silicon wafer so it can be mounted in a flexible polymer support. Hydrogel are a type of polymer that adsorb water many fold higher than Significant innovation in the use of hydrogels pwhere the sensing element is mounted in a flexible polymer gel. |
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Chemical Synthesis Detector
We exploit the high internal surface area and binding capacity of PSi as a scaffold for solid phase peptide synthesis and leverage the optical sensor capability to directly monitor the peptide formation in a label free format. We monitored the synthesis of RGD adhesive cell binding peptide and demonstrated fibrobast adhesion relative to oxide control. In collaboration with the Winograd Group at the Pennsylvania State University we performed SIMS analysis to validate the synthesis. |
