Genetic analysis is considered to be the ultimate diagnostic approach in many fields, e.g., in medicine for disease detection, in agricultural technology for food and feed authentication, in forensics, to name a few. Consequently, great interest is growing in developing sensitive and reliable analytical tools (biosensors) to identify whole DNA sequences, oligonucleotide fragments, or single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). In addition, these biosensors are becoming vital tools for clinical diagnosis and point-of-care systems. They need to be of high sensitivity, high specificity, fast response, inexpensive, and easy to use. In this work, we discuss a surface-plasmon fluorescence grating coupler-based biosensor, fabricated on polymer substrates, and with a designed surface binding procedure that offers the direct response required for a sensor to be implemented in a disposable system. These gratings fabricated on polymer substrates using an embossing technique showed excellent and reproducible resonance coupling results. We also present a monitoring protocol for hybridization reactions based on fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) to quench the bulk solution contribution that decreases the sensitivity of the grating biosensors.

遗传分析被认为是许多领域的最终诊断方法，例如，在疾病检测医学，在食品和饲料认证中的农业技术，法医学等领域。因此，人们对开发灵敏可靠的分析工具（生物传感器）以识别整个DNA序列，寡核苷酸片段或单核苷酸多态性（SNP）的兴趣日益浓厚。此外，这些生物传感器正在成为临床诊断和即时护理系统的重要工具。它们需要具有高灵敏度，高特异性，快速反应，廉价且易于使用。在这项工作中，我们讨论了一种在聚合物基底上制造的基于表面等离子体激元荧光光栅耦合器的生物传感器，并具有设计好的表面结合程序，可提供将传感器安装在一次性系统中所需的直接响应。使用压印技术在聚合物基板上制造的这些光栅显示出极佳且可重现的共振耦合结果。我们还提出了一种基于荧光共振能量转移（FRET）的杂交反应监测协议，以淬灭大量溶液的贡献，从而降低了光栅生物传感器的灵敏度。