Cauliflower-Like Nanostructured Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance Biosensor Chip for Cytokine Detection

Abstract

Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) based nano-plasmonic biosensors have attracted great attentions due to its rapid detection and label-free capability. Aiming to obtain a high performance LSPR sensor chip, a cauliflower-like nanopillar (CLNP) structure was fabricated based on the cyclo-olefin polymer (COP) material which could increase the sensitivity according to the “hotspots” effect theory. An oxygen plasma etching procedure was introduced to the chip fabrication process to carve the nanopillar surface that prepared by nanoimprinting lithography (NIL) into the cauliflower-like nanostructures. In this paper, the cauliflower-like nanopillar structured sensor chip was successfully obtained and the result confirmed that this sensor chip has higher sensitivity compared to untreated nanopillar structured one. Meanwhile, the biosensing capability was verified by cell interleukin-6 (IL-6) immunoassay. This approach provides an easy way to fabricate mass-producible LSPR biosensor chips for cell cytokine secretion detection.