Concept of a Crossed Czerny-Turner Spectrometer With an Integrated Automatic Sampling System for Biodetection Using Ultrastable Gold Nanoparticles

This work presents the design and implementation of a portable optofluidic system for biodetection based on ultrastable gold nanoparticles functionalized with a dopamine-binding aptamer. The automatic sampling and mixing fluidic system integrated into a spectrometer is configured to measure the gold nanoparticles' plasmon band position. The novel molecule detection method based on ultrastable gold nanoparticles has been previously tested using dopamine as the target molecule. The optofluidic system designed for automatic bathochromic shift detection has an optical resolution of 1 nm using a 50-mu m input slit. The proposed system, compared to other existing molecule detection techniques, has several advantages including portability and automatic detection for in situ applications.