ABSTRACT
As the equipment to analyze biomolecular interactions, biosensor systems based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) have already been commercialized. Most of them are, however, very expensive and large to compensate the system’s environmental parameters rigorously. On the other hand, though some low-cost SPR systems are also in the market recently, they can be used in restrictive cases since they are generally susceptible to background noise factors. For instance, the refractive index of water changes about 10-4 when its temperature varies at 1°C, which is sufficiently large in detecting the biomolecular interactions. In this study, we have developed a localized SPR sensor based on nanoimprint technology. By using this method, the background noises can be considerably eliminated as verified in the previous chapter. This enables the biosensor system to omit the temperature control system. And the optical system can also be very simple since the total internal reflection of incident light is not necessary in our sensor device. By taking full advantage of these properties, we have developed three different types of proto-model systems referred to as “nanoimprint biosensors”. The first one is for laboratory use, the second one is a portable system, and the third one is handy-type system. The details of these systems are presented in this chapter.
