from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
There are many methods that allow detection of complex analytes such as soil contaminants and explosives, which can be dispersed in the various of liquid and solid. Nevertheless, it remains a challenge to create a lab-on-a-chip (LoC) platform for on-line detection of small analytes volumes (below the few femtoliters), with high sensitivity, specificity and reliability. It is expected that the combination of microfluidics and plasmonic will create a highly sensitive and affordable lab-on-a-chip platform for the solving of above mentioned challenge. The proposed approach will utilize the unique advantages of microfluidics that explore and uses unusual behavior of microscale-restricted liquids and surface-enhanced Raman analytical method, which is able to recognize the single molecule of the targeted analyte. In this work, we demonstrated the model of a microfluidic micromixer incorporating with a plasmon active substrate. The design and realization of proposed experimental concept include the solving of following tasks: (i) utilization of Comsol software for mathematical simulation of possible processes in microfluidic mixer; (ii) preparation of microfluidic platform using 3D printing; (iii) application of excimer UV laser large-scale patterning and local gold deposition for creation of plasmonic active area. Our LoC platform allows detection of model analyte (R6G) at concentrations down to 10 fM (10−15 mol⋅L−1). Proposed unique features are the key to new scientific experiments and innovations in the field of lab-on-a-chip devices and analytical approaches.
Keywords: Lab-on-a-chip, SERS, R6G, 3D printing, microfluidics system© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.