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Surface acoustic wave (SAW) transducers propagating shear waves are compatible with sensing chemical compounds in a liquid phase. However, if the liquid surrounding the sensor possesses a higher permittivity than the piezoelectric substrate, then the interdigitated electrodes for converting the incoming electromagnetic wave to acoustic waves are susceptible to capacitive short-circuiting, leading to excessive insertion losses. By using high-permittivity lithium tantalate oxide (LTO), we demonstrate chemical sensing in water without the need for dedicated microfluidic packaging. Nevertheless, the gravimetric sensitivity of these package-less transmission Love-mode delay lines remains comparable to that of low-permittivity quartz when appropriately tuning the guiding layer of thin film to confine energy to the surface in a Love mode. We extend the transmission line gravimetric sensitivity measurement to a reflective delay line geometry for passive transducers that can be wirelessly probed. For instance, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) can be used for subsurface sensing, here targeting water pollution detection, operating in the 100-500-MHz range. This center frequency was selected as a tradeoff between penetration depth (lower frequency) and antenna size (smaller at higher frequency). Nonspecific binding of proteins detection is shown in the context of biosensing applications.

This article reports on the use of a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform for local ultra-stable optical frequency distribution through a 90 m-long fiber network. This platform is used to implement a fully digital treatment of the Doppler-cancellation scheme required by fiber links to be able to distribute ultra-stable frequencies. We present a novel protocol that uses aliased images of a digital synthesizer output to directly generate signals above the Nyquist frequency. This approach significantly simplifies the setup, making it easy to duplicate within a local fiber network. We demonstrate performances enabling the distribution of an optical signal with an instability below 10 -17 at 1 s at the receiver end. We also use the board to implement an original characterization method. It leads to an efficient characterization of the disturbance rejection of the system that can be realized without accessing the remote output of the fiber link.

The detection of organophosphates, a wide class of pesticides, in water-solution has a huge impact in environmental monitoring. Acoustic transducers are used to design passive wireless sensors for the direct detection of pesticides in water-solution by using tailored polymers as sensitive layers. We demonstrate by combining analytical chemistry tools that organophosphate molecules strongly alter polymer layers widely used in acoustic sensors in the presence of water. This chemical degradation can limit the use of these polymers in detection of organophosphates in water-solution.

Progress made in optical references, including ultrastable Fabry-Perot cavities, optical frequency combs, and optical atomic clocks, has driven the need for ultrastable optical fiber networks. Telecom-wavelength ultrapure optical signal transport has been demonstrated on distances ranging from the laboratory scale to the continental scale. In this article, we present a Doppler-cancellation setup based on a digital phase-locked loop (PLL) for ultrastable optical signal dissemination over fiber. The optical phase stabilization setup is based on a usual heterodyne Michelson-interferometer setup, while the software-defined radio (SDR) implementation of the PLL is based on a compact commercial board embedding a field-programmable gate array and analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters. Using three different configurations, including an undersampling method, we demonstrate a 20-m-long fiber link with residual fractional frequency instability as low as 10 -18 at 1000 s and optical phase noise of -70 dBc/Hz at 1 Hz with a telecom frequency carrier.

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and Love wave (LW) surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors have been established as reliable biosensing technologies for label-free, real-time monitoring of biomolecular interactions. This work reports the development of a combined SPR/LW-SAW platform to facilitate simultaneous optical and acoustic measurements for the investigation of biomolecules binding on a single surface. The system's output provides recordings of two acoustic parameters, phase and amplitude of a Love wave, synchronized with SPR readings. We present the design and manufacturing of a novel experimental set-up employing, in addition to the SPR/LW-SAW device, a 3D-printed plastic holder combined with a PDMS microfluidic cell so that the platform can be used in a flow-through mode. The system was evaluated in a systematic study of the optical and acoustic responses for different surface perturbations, i.e., rigid mass loading (Au deposition), pure viscous loading (glycerol and sucrose solutions) and protein adsorption (BSA). Our results provide the theoretical and experimental basis for future application of the combined system to other biochemical and biophysical studies.

Long-term monitoring of organic pollutants in the soil is a major environmental challenge. We propose to meet this issue by the development of a polymer dedicated to selectively react with H 2 S, coating surface acoustic wave transducers designed as passive cooperative targets with the compound, and probing their response using Ground Penetrating RADAR, thus providing the capability to monitor the presence of H 2 S in the subsurface environment. The selectivity is brought by including lead(II) cation in a reticulated polymer matrix which can be deposited as a thin layer on a surface acoustic wave sensor. We demonstrate a signal enhancement mechanism in which water absorption magnifies the signal detection, making the sensor most sensitive to H 2 S in an underground environment saturated with moisture.

Software-defined radio (SDR) provides stability, flexibility, and reconfigurability to radio frequency signal processing. Applied to oscillator characterization in the context of ultrastable clocks, stringent filtering requirements are defined by spurious signal or noise rejection needs. Since real-time radio frequency processing must be performed in a field-programmable array to meet timing constraints, we investigate optimization strategies to design filters meeting rejection characteristics while limiting the hardware resources required and keeping timing constraints within the targeted measurement bandwidths. The presented technique is applicable to scheduling any sequence of processing blocks characterized by a throughput, resource occupation and performance tabulated as a function of configuration characteristics, as is the case for filters with their coefficients and resolution yielding rejection and the number of multipliers.

In field-programmable gate array platforms, the main clock is generally a low-cost quartz oscillator whose stability is of the order of 10 -9 to 10 -10 in the short term and 10 -7 to 10 -8 in the medium term, with the uncertainty of tens of ppm. Better stability is achieved by feeding an external reference into the internal phase-locked loop (PLL). We report the noise characterization of the internal PLL of Red-Pitaya platform, an open-source embedded system architected around the Zynq 7010 System on Chip, with analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters. Our experiments show that, providing an external 10-MHz reference, the PLL exhibits a residual frequency stability of 1.2×10 -12 at 1 s and 1.3×10 -15 at 4000 s, Allan deviation in 5-Hz bandwidth. These results help to predict the PLL stability as a function of frequency and power of the external reference, and provide guidelines for the design of precision instrumentation, chiefly intended for time and frequency metrology.

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors in the form of two-port resonators or delay lines are widely used in various fields of application. The readout of such sensors is achieved by electronic systems operating either in an open-loop or in a closed-loop configuration. The mode of operation of the sensor system is usually chosen based on requirements like, e.g., bandwidth, dynamic range, linearity, costs, and immunity against environmental influences. Because the limit of detection (LOD) at the output of a sensor system is often one of the most important figures of merit, both readout structures, i.e., open-loop and closed-loop systems, are analyzed in terms of the minimum achievable LOD. Based on a comprehensive phase noise analysis of these structures for both resonant sensors and delay line sensors, expressions for the various limits of detection are derived. Under generally valid conditions, the equivalence of open-loop and closed-loop operation is shown for both types of sensors. These results are not only valid for SAW devices, but are also applicable to all kinds of phase-sensitive sensors.

We investigate the use of low-cost digital video broadcasting-terrestrial (DVB-T) receivers as general-purpose software-defined radio (SDR) receivers for passive bistatic radar (PBR) applications. Two DVB-T receivers are synchronized using a common clock to perform coherent measurements. By exploiting the direct-path signal in the surveillance channel, we use the cross-correlation process to estimate the time offset between the data streams of reference and surveillance channels caused by the universal serial bus communication. We demonstrate the detection of static and moving targets as well as short-range targets, including a landing airplane at 8 km, multiple ships with different velocities, and vehicles within 20 m from the receiver acquiring at a 2 MHz bandwidth, by using Japan's Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting Terrestrial digital TeleVision (TV) signal broadcast. We also propose to improve the range resolution of the designed PBR system by combining multiple SDR receivers tuned to different carrier frequencies. The designed system and proposed method can be used for various applications, such as airplane navigation, harbor protection, and traffic density monitoring.

Passive wireless transducers are used as sensors, probed by a RADAR system. A simple way to separate the returning signal from the clutter is to delay the response, so that the clutter decays before the echoes are received. This can be achieved by introducing a fixed delay in the sensor design. Acoustic wave transducers are ideally suited as cooperative targets for passive, wireless sensing. The incoming electromagnetic pulse is converted into an acoustic wave, propagated on the sensor substrate surface, and reflected as an electromagnetic echo. According to a known law, the acoustic wave propagation velocity depends on the physical quantity under investigation, which is then measured as an echo delay. Both conversions between electromagnetic and acoustic waves are based on the piezoelectric property of the substrate of which the sensor is made. Investigating underground sensing, we address the problems of using GPR (Ground-Penetrating RADAR) for probing cooperative targets. The GPR is a good candidate for this application because it provides an electromagnetic source and receiver, as well as echo recording tools. Instead of designing dedicated electronics, we choose a commercially available, reliable and rugged instrument. The measurement range depends on parameters like antenna radiation pattern, radio spectrum matching between GPR and the target, antenna-sensor impedance matching and the transfer function of the target. We demonstrate measurements at depths ranging from centimeters to circa 1 m in a sandbox. In our application, clutter rejection requires delays between the emitted pulse and echoes to be longer than in the regular use of the GPR for geophysical measurements. This delay, and the accuracy needed for sensing, challenge the GPR internal time base. In the GPR units we used, the drift turns out to be incompatible with the targeted application. The available documentation of other models and brands suggests that this is a rather general limitation. We solved the problem by replacing the analog ramp generator defining the time base with a fully digital solution, whose time accuracy and stability relies on a quartz oscillator. The resulting stability is acceptable for sub-surface cooperative sensor measurement., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest. The founding sponsors had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; nor in the decision to publish the results.

The development of integrated platforms incorporating an acoustic device as the detection element requires addressing simultaneously several challenges of technological and scientific nature. The present work was focused on the design of a microfluidic module, which, combined with a dual or array type Love wave acoustic chip could be applied to biomedical applications and molecular diagnostics. Based on a systematic study we optimized the mechanics of the flow cell attachment and the sealing material so that fluidic interfacing/encapsulation would impose minimal losses to the acoustic wave. We have also investigated combinations of operating frequencies with waveguide materials and thicknesses for maximum sensitivity during the detection of protein and DNA biomarkers. Within our investigations neutravidin was used as a model protein biomarker and unpurified PCR amplified Salmonella DNA as the model genetic target. Our results clearly indicate the need for experimental verification of the optimum engineering and analytical parameters, in order to develop commercially viable systems for integrated analysis. The good reproducibility of the signal together with the ability of the array biochip to detect multiple samples hold promise for the future use of the integrated system in a Lab-on-a-Chip platform for application to molecular diagnostics.

Improvements on electronic technology in recent years have allowed the application of digital techniques in phase noise metrology, where low noise and high accuracy are required, yielding flexibility in system implementation and setup. This results in measurement systems with extended capabilities, additional functionalities, and ease of use. In most digital schemes, the Analog to Digital Converters (ADCs) set the ultimate performance of the system; therefore the proper selection of this component is a critical issue. Currently, the information available in the literature describes in depth the ADC features only at frequency offsets far from the carrier. However, the performance close to the carrier is a more important concern. As a consequence, the ADC noise is, in general, analyzed on the implemented phase measurement setup. We propose a noise model for ADCs and a method to estimate its parameters. The method retrieves the phase modulation and amplitude modulation noise by sampling around zero and maximum amplitude, a test sine-wave synchronous with the ADC clock. The model allows discriminating the ADC noise sources and obtaining the phase noise and amplitude noise power spectral densities from 10 Hz to one half of the sampling frequency. This approach reduces the data processing, allowing an efficient ADC evaluation in terms of hardware complexity and computational cost.

Stroboscopy provides an energy and computationally efficient means of sampling radiofrequency and microwave signals assumed to be reproducible under external excitation. While well known for impulse mode RADAR receivers, we here investigate its use for interrogating surface acoustic wave (SAW) transducers acting as passive cooperative targets. Amongst the originality of the implementation is the need to keep phase coherence between successive pulse generations which last up to tens of the radiofrequency periods to optimally transfer energy to the transducer. A two-chip receiver architecture is demonstrated, with a trigger signal compatible either with single-period avalanche transistor pulse excitation or frequency-agile direct digital synthesizer source.

The development of integrated, fast and affordable platforms for pathogen detection is an emerging area where a multidisciplinary approach is necessary for designing microsystems employing miniaturized devices; these new technologies promise a significant advancement of the current state of analytical testing leading to improved healthcare. In this work, the development of a lab-on-chip microsystem platform for the genetic analysis of Salmonella in milk samples is presented. The heart of the platform is an acoustic detection biochip, integrated with a microfluidic module. This detection platform is combined with a micro-processor, which, alongside with magnetic beads technology and a DNA micro-amplification module, are responsible for performing sample pre-treatment, bacteria lysis, nucleic acid purification and amplification. Automated, multiscale manipulation of fluids in complex microchannel networks is combined with novel sensing principles developed by some of the partners. This system is expected to have a significant impact in food-pathogen detection by providing for the first time an integrated detection test for Salmonella screening in a very short time. Finally, thanks to the low cost and compact technologies involved, the proposed set-up is expected to provide a competitive analytical platform for direct application in field settings.

This article reports on the design and characterization of a high-overtone bulk acoustic wave resonator (HBAR)-oscillator-based 4.596 GHz frequency source. A 2.298 GHz signal, generated by an oscillator constructed around a thermally controlled two-port aluminum nitride-sapphire HBAR resonator with a Q-factor of 24,000 at 68 °C, is frequency multiplied by 2-4.596 GHz, half of the Cs atom clock frequency. The temperature coefficient of frequency of the HBAR is measured to be -23 ppm/ °C at 2.298 GHz. The measured phase noise of the 4.596 GHz source is -105 dB rad(2)/Hz at 1 kHz offset and -150 dB rad(2)/Hz at 100 kHz offset. The 4.596 GHz output signal is used as a local oscillator in a laboratory-prototype Cs microcell-based coherent population trapping atomic clock. The signal is stabilized onto the atomic transition frequency by tuning finely a voltage-controlled phase shifter implemented in the 2.298 GHz HBAR-oscillator loop, preventing the need for a high-power-consuming direct digital synthesis. The short-term fractional frequency stability of the free-running oscillator is 1.8 × 10(-9) at one second integration time. In locked regime, the latter is improved in a preliminary proof-of-concept experiment at the level of 6.6 × 10(-11) τ(-1/2) up to a few seconds and found to be limited by the signal-to-noise ratio of the detected CPT resonance.

Dielectric resonators, generally used for frequency filtering in oscillator loops, can be used as passive cooperative targets for wireless sensor applications. In the present work, we demonstrate such an approach by probing their spectral characteristics using a microwave RADAR system. The unique spectral response and energy storage capability of resonators provide unique responses allowing to separate the sensor response from clutter. Although the dielectric resonator is not designed for high temperature sensitivity, the accurate determination of the resonance frequency allows for a remote estimate of the temperature with Kelvin resolution.

The role of the phase noise of a local oscillator driving a pulsed-mode RADAR used for probing surface acoustic wave sensors is investigated. The echo delay, representative of the acoustic velocity, and hence the physical quantity probed by the sensor, is finely measured as a phase. Considering that the intrinsic oscillator phase fluctuation defines the phase noise measurement resolution, we experimentally and theoretically assess the relation between phase noise, measurement range, and measurand resolution.

Vibrating mechanical structure characterization is demonstrated using contactless techniques best suited for mobile and rotating equipments. Fast measurement rates are achieved using Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices as real-time digital signal processors. Two kinds of algorithms are implemented on FPGA and experimentally validated in the case of the vibrating tuning fork. A first application concerns in-plane displacement detection by vision with sampling rates above 10 kHz, thus reaching frequency ranges above the audio range. A second demonstration concerns pulsed-RADAR cooperative target phase detection and is applied to radiofrequency acoustic transducers used as passive wireless strain gauges. In this case, the 250 ksamples/s refresh rate achieved is only limited by the acoustic sensor design but not by the detection bandwidth. These realizations illustrate the efficiency, interest, and potentialities of FPGA-based real-time digital signal processing for the contactless interrogation of passive embedded probes with high refresh rates.

Detecting chemical species in gas phase has recently received an increasing interest mainly for security control, trying to implement new systems allowing for extended dynamics and reactivity. In this work, an open-loop interrogation strategy is proposed to use radio-frequency acoustic transducers as micro-balances for that purpose. The resulting system is dedicated to the monitoring of chemical compounds in gaseous or liquid-phase state. A 16 Hz standard deviation is demonstrated at 125 MHz, with a working frequency band in the 60 to 133 MHz range, answering the requirements for using Rayleigh- and Love-wave-based delay lines operating with 40-μm acoustic wavelength transducers. Moreover, this electronic setup was used to interrogate a high-overtone bulk acoustic wave resonator (HBAR) microbalance, a new sensor class allowing for multi-mode interrogation for gravimetric measurement improvement. The noise source still limiting the system performance is due to the analog-to-digital converter of the microcontroller, thus leaving open degrees-of-freedom for improving the obtained results by optimizing the voltage reference and board layout. The operation of the system is illustrated using a calibrated galvanic deposition at the surface of Love-wave delay lines to assess theoretical predictions of their gravimetric sensitivity and to compare them with HBAR-based sensor sensitivity.

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators can advantageously operate as passive sensors which can be interrogated through a wireless link. Amongst the practical applications of such devices, structural health monitoring through stress measurement and more generally vibration characteristics of mechanical structures benefit from the ability to bury such sensors within the considered structure (wireless and battery-less). However, measurement bandwidth becomes a significant challenge when measuring wideband vibration characteristics of mechanical structures. A fast SAW resonator measurement scheme is demonstrated here. The measurement bandwidth is limited by the physical settling time of the resonator (Q/π periods), requiring only two probe pulses through a monostatic RADAR-like electronic setup to identify the sensor resonance frequency and hence stress on a resonator acting as a strain gauge. A measurement update rate of 4800 Hz using a high quality factor SAW resonator operating in the 434 MHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical band is experimentally demonstrated.

We demonstrate the wireless conversion of frequency modulation to amplitude modulation by radio frequency resonators as means of accurately determining the resonance frequency of passive acoustoelectronic sensors. The emitted frequency modulated radio frequency pulses are generated by a pulsed radar for probing a surface acoustic wave based sensor. The sharp sign transition of the amplitude modulated received signal provides a signal on which a feedback loop is locked to monitor the resonance signal. The strategy is demonstrated using a full software implementation on a generic hardware, resulting in 2 Hz resolution at 1 s integration time limited by the proportional feedback loop.

Monitoring physical quantities using acoustic wave devices can be advantageously achieved using the wave characteristic dependence to various parametric perturbations (temperature, stress, and pressure). Surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators are particularly well suited to such applications as their resonance frequency is directly influenced by these perturbations, modifying both the phase velocity and resonance conditions. Moreover, the intrinsic radio frequency (rf) nature of these devices makes them ideal for wireless applications, mainly exploiting antennas reciprocity and piezoelectric reversibility. In this paper, we present a wireless SAW sensor interrogation unit operating in the 434 MHz centered ISM band--selected as a tradeoff between antenna dimensions and electromagnetic wave penetration in dielectric media--based on the principles of a frequency sweep network analyzer. We particularly focus on the compliance with the ISM standard which reveals complicated by the need for switching from emission to reception modes similarly to radar operation. In this matter, we propose a fully digital rf synthesis chain to develop various interrogation strategies to overcome the corresponding difficulties and comply with the above-mentioned standard. We finally assess the reader interrogation range, accuracy, and dynamics.

This Note reports on experimental results obtained with a recently published vision method for in-plane vibration measurement [Sandoz et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 78, 023706 (2007)]. The latter is applied to a tip-loaded quartz tuning fork frequently used in scanning probe microscopy for shear-force monitoring of the tip-sample distance. The vibration amplitude of the tip-loaded prong is compared to that of the free one and the damping induced by tip-surface interactions is measured. The tuning-fork behavior is characterized during approaches from free space to surface contact. Tip-surface contact is clearly identified by a drastic reduction in the prong vibration amplitude. However, no differences were observed between hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces. Experiments reported here show that the vibration amplitude of the quartz tuning fork in free space is a good estimate of the vibration amplitude of the tip interacting with the sample surface during shear force sample-tip feedback. The experimental setup for measuring the amplitude is easily integrated in an inverted microscope setup on which the shear force microscope is installed for simultaneous scanning probe and optical microscopy analysis of the sample.

The need for high-frequency, wide-band filters has instigated many developments based on combining thin piezoelectric films and high acoustic velocity materials (sapphire, diamond-like carbon, silicon, etc.) to ease the manufacture of devices operating above 2 GHz. In the present work, a technological process has been developed to achieve thin-oriented, single-crystal lithium niobate (LiNbO3) layers deposited on (100) silicon wafers for the fabrication of radio-frequency (RF) surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices. The use of such oriented thin films is expected to favor large coupling coefficients together with a good control of the layer properties, enabling one to chose the best combination of layer orientation to optimize the device. A theoretical analysis of the elastic wave assumed to propagate on such a combination of material is first exposed. Technological aspects then are described briefly. Experimental results are presented and compared to the state of art.

This article introduces an improved approach for the characterization of in-plane rigid-body vibration, based on digital processing of stroboscopic images of the moving part. The method involves a sample preparation step, in order to pattern a periodic microstructure on the vibrating device, for instance, by focused ion beam milling. An image processing method has then been developed to perform the optimum reconstruction of this a priori known object feature. In-plane displacement and rotation are deduced simultaneously with a high resolution (10-2 pixel and 0.5 x 10(-3) rad, respectively). The measurement principle combines phase measurements-that provide the high resolution-with correlation-that unwraps the phase with the proper phase constants. The vibration modes of a tuning fork are used for demonstrating the capabilities of the method. For applications allowing the sample preparation, the proposed methodology is more convenient than common interference methods or image processing techniques for the characterization of the vibration modes, even for amplitudes in the nanometer range.

We show the theoretical and experimental combination of acoustic and optical methods for the in situ quantitative evaluation of the density, the viscosity, and the thickness of soft layers adsorbed on chemically tailored metal surfaces. For the highest sensitivity and an operation in liquids, a Love mode surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensor with a hydrophobized gold-coated sensing area is the acoustic method, while surface plasmon resonance (SPR) on the same gold surface as the optical method is monitored simultaneously in a single setup for the real-time and label-free measurement of the parameters of adsorbed soft layers, which means for layers with a predominant viscous behavior. A general mathematical modeling in equivalent viscoelastic transmission lines is presented to determine the correlation between experimental SAW signal shifts and the waveguide structure including the presence of the adsorbed layer and the supporting liquid from which it segregates. A methodology is presented to identify from SAW and SPR simulations the parameters representatives of the soft layer. During the absorption of a soft layer, thickness or viscosity changes are observed in the experimental ratio of the SAW signal attenuation to the SAW signal phase and are correlated with the theoretical model. As application example, the simulation method is applied to study the thermal behavior of physisorbed PNIPAAm, a polymer whose conformation is sensitive to temperature, under a cycling variation of temperature between 20 and 40 degrees C. Under the assumption of the bulk density and the bulk refractive index of PNIPAAm, thickness and viscosity of the film are obtained from simulations; the viscosity is correlated to the solvent content of the physisorbed layer.

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is a valuable biomarker for prostate cancer screening. We developed a PSA immunoassay on a commercially available surface plasmon resonance biosensor. Our PSA receptor molecule consists of a single domain antigen-binding fragment, cAbPSA-N7, derived from dromedary heavy-chain antibodies and identified after phage display. It binds PSA with a high k(on) value of 1.9x10(6) M-1 s-1, and was covalently immobilised on a gold substrate via a mixed self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of alkanethiols by using carbodiimide-coupling chemistry in 10mM acetate buffer pH 5.5 to obtain an optimal pre-concentration. The best performing and optimised mixed SAM consisted of (10%) 16-mercapto-1-hexadecanoic acid (16-MHA) for covalent cAbPSA-N7 immobilisation and (90%) 11-mercapto-1-undecanol (11-MUOH) to minimise non-specific adsorption of the analyte. In this way, two advantages are incorporated in a single coupling layer. Up to 28 fmol/mm2 of cAbPSA-N7 could be immobilised and 30% of its binding sites participate actively in PSA interaction. In addition, the optimised layer showed also optimal performance to assess physiological samples. Although PSA concentrations as low as 10 ng/ml could be detected directly, this detection limit could be enhanced to PSA levels in the sub ng/ml range by introducing a sandwich assay involving a biotinylated secondary antibody and streptavidin modified gold nanoparticles. This approach realizes the PSA detection at clinical relevant concentrations.

Immunosensors show great potential for the direct detection of biological molecules. The sensitivity of these affinity-based biosensors is dictated by the amount of receptor molecules immobilized on the sensor surface. An enlargement of the sensor area would allow for an increase of the binding capacity, hence a larger amount of immobilized receptor molecules. To this end, we use electrochemically deposited "gold black" as a porous sensor surface for the immobilization of proteins. In this paper, we have analyzed the different parameters that define the electrochemical growth of porous gold, starting from flat gold surfaces, using different characterization techniques. Applied potentials of -0.5 V versus a reference electrode were found to constitute the most adequate conditions to grow porous gold surfaces. Using cyclic voltammetry, a 16 times increase of the surface area was observed under these electrochemical deposition conditions. In addition, we have assessed the immobilization degree of alkanethiols and of proteins on these different porous surfaces. The optimized deposition conditions for realizing porous gold substrates lead to a 11.4-fold increase of thiol adsorption and a 3.3-fold increase of protein adsorption, using the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM-D) as a biological transducer system. Hence, it follows that the high specific area of the porous gold can amplify the final sensitivity of the original flat surface device.

Time-resolved adsorption behavior of a human immunoglobin G (hIgG) protein on a hydrophobized gold surface is investigated using multitechniques: quartz crystal microbalance/dissipation (QCM-D) technique; combined surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and Love mode surface acoustic wave (SAW) technique; combined QCM-D and atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique. The adsorbed hIgG forms interfacial structures varying in organization from a submonolayer to a multilayer. An "end-on" IgG orientation in the monolayer film, associated with the surface coverage results, does not corroborate with the effective protein thickness determined from SPR/SAW measurements. This inconsistence is interpreted by a deformation effect induced by conformation change. This conformation change is confirmed by QCM-D measurement. Combined SPR/SAW measurements suggest that the adsorbed protein barely contains water after extended contact with the hydrophobic surface. This limited interfacial hydration also contributed to a continuous conformation change in the adsorbed protein layer. The viscoelastic variation associated with interfacial conformation changes induces about 1.5 times overestimation of the mass uptake in the QCM-D measurements. The merit of combined multitechnique measurements is demonstrated.

The absorption spectrum of noble metal spherical nanoparticles is known to be strongly influenced by the dielectric constant of the surrounding material, and as such, these particles are well suited for biosensing applications. To perform biosensing using nanoparticles on a substrate, the metal particles are covalently attached onto quartz using an organic adhesion layer of mercaptosilanes. The particles in solution are characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy, while those attached to the quartz are characterized with UV-vis spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. Antibodies are attached to the metal nanoparticles, and the antigen recognition is monitored via the change of light absorption when this binding event occurs. Not only is the absorbance originating from plasmon resonances of the particles influenced by the dielectric properties of molecules attached to the nanospheres but also the interband absorption of the particles changes, which will be demonstrated in this report. A light absorption change is detected when a molecular recognition occurs between the bioreceptor molecules attached to the nanoparticle and a biomolecular counterpart. This change in absorption can be very large when adhered molecules are at resonance (interband transitions). In addition, the presented type of biosensing can be a cost-effective and easy to use alternative to conventional biosensing techniques.