Jukka Lekkala

Integrated optics in biosensor design

Optical sensing techniques have obtained remarkable attention in developing biosensors. Especially, methods based on evanescent field probing are suitable for direct immunosensing. However, miniaturized immunosensors are more difficult to realize when compared with catalytic sensors. Miniaturization and the small amounts of reagents will speed up detection but they are also a potential source of errors and instability. Different aspects of miniaturization of immunosensors are discussed. Some modeling methods of the optical biosensing interface are presented. Modeling is important, but there is a lack of detailed optical data of biomolecules. Two integrated optics detectors are described and their use in biosensing applications are evaluated.