インド工科大学ブバネシュワール校との共同研究の成果が ACS Applied Nano Materials に掲載されました。
フォトニック結晶ファイバ中のモード間干渉を使った化学センシング（クレゾールの選択的検出）を実証した論文が ACS Applied Nano Materials に掲載されました（IF = 5.9）。インド工科大学ブバネシュワール校（Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar）の Rajan Jha 教授との共同研究の成果です。
P. Gorai, Y. Mizuno, M. Kumar, and R. Jha, “Molecular imprinting polymer nanoparticles coupled with an optical sensor for sensitive and label-free detection of p-cresol,” ACS Appl. Nano Mater., vol. 6, no. 14, pp. 12946-12956 (2023).
Selective detection of toxic pollutants present in water has been a severe challenge to the scientific community for a long time. The noble integration of optical fiber-based interferometry with bio-recognizing element molecular imprinting polymer (MIP) exhibits a promising technique for selective and susceptible biochemical detection. Here we report a compact, stable, reproducible, and label-free optical sensor using a combined approach of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based modal interferometry and MIP nanoparticles (MIP-NPs) for selective detection of water pollutant p-cresol with an extremely low limit of detection (LOD). The MIP-NPs having a greater surface-to-volume aspect ratio, allows more target analytes to bind. The sensor immobilized with MIP-NPs shows unprecedented sensitivity of 1.86×108 nm/M with specific and repeatable detection performance for a broad dynamic detection range of 10-8 M – 10-3 M. The sensor offers a remarkable detection ability of as low as 2 nM concentrations of p-cresol in the aqueous medium, for water quality monitoring. Fast response, high resolution, compact size, label-free broad detection range, and selective reusable performance of the proposed sensor exhibit potential for board practical utilizations, including medical sectors, online and remote biosensing, and water resource monitoring.
