A research team at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden announced on Mar. 10 the development of a new laser technology that could enable the creation of small, cost-effective biosensors. The innovation integrates lasers and optics onto a centimeter-sized semiconductor chip, potentially allowing diagnostic testing to be performed in patients' homes rather than hospitals or clinics.
The advancement is significant because it could help reduce hospital stays and minimize the need for clinic visits by making certain medical tests more accessible outside traditional healthcare settings. This shift may free up hospital beds and streamline patient care.
The technology centers around optical biosensors that use surface-plasmon resonance, a method where light is directed onto a gold surface to detect minute changes when biomolecules interact. Traditionally, these sensors require large optical components like prisms, which make them bulky and difficult to align. The Chalmers team's solution involves integrating both the laser source and necessary optics directly onto a small chip containing hundreds of microscopic lasers.
"With this technology, we want to create an instrument that allows healthcare professionals to take certain samples in the patient's home. For example, we're currently evaluating how well our sensor can perform a C-reactive protein (CRP) test. Because this technology is very general and can detect a wide range of biomolecular interactions, we see many potential applications for a wide variety of tests. This could allow patients to be discharged from hospital sooner after an operation - thereby freeing up hospital beds - and reduce the number of healthcare visits for sampling," said Erik Strandberg, doctoral candidate in photonics at Chalmers and lead author of a study published in ACS Sensors.
Strandberg also said: "By successfully integrating the optics with the laser sources right on the chip, our innovation opens a lot of doors and is a key step towards shrinking the current biotech instruments and creating portable, battery-powered systems. The chips we manufacture are about the size of a thumbtack and contain hundreds of lasers, each measuring 200x250 micrometers - few times thicker than a hair. Having both the laser and the optics integrated into the same semiconductor chip also enables cost-effective large-scale production of light sources for this technology."
The research team plans to further develop their sensor by increasing its sensitivity and expanding its capacity to analyze multiple samples simultaneously.
