BS4.1 - Bio- and chemosensors based on the thermal boundary resistance at solid-liquid interfaces

Event
17th International Meeting on Chemical Sensors - IMCS 2018
2018-07-15 - 2018-07-19
Vienna, Austria
Chapter
Biosensors 4 - Novel Transducers
Author(s)
P. Wagner - KULeuven, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Soft-Matter Physics and Biophysics Section, Leuven (Belgium)
Pages
178 - 179
DOI
10.5162/IMCS2018/BS4.1
ISBN
978-3-9816876-9-9
Price
free

Abstract

This contribution will give an overview on a recently developed sensing principle, the Heat-Transfer Method HTM. In analogy with impedance spectroscopy that employs capacitive- or Faradaic electrical currents, HTM operates with thermal currents that pass the interface between a functionalized sensor chip and the supernatant liquid. The thermal resistance Rth of the interface is highly sensitive to the conformation of the functional layer and/or to its binding state with target molecules. HTM applications till date include the characterization of mutations in DNA, the monitoring of phase transitions in lipids, and the selective and quantitative detection of neurotransmitters, proteins, cancer cells and bacteria. Furthermore, HTM can easily be combined with other sensing principles to gain orthogonal information on target molecules. Regarding detection limits, HTM is similar to non-Faradaic impedance spectroscopy (nanomolar range) with the difference that HTM can also operate with electrically insulating chip materials and insulating receptor coatings such as surface-imprinter polymer layers. The overview will conclude with recent observations on heat transfer at the molecular scale and will present an outlook to bio- and chemosensors that utilize thermal-wave techniques.

Download