Rabah Zeggari

Micropositioning and Fast Transport Using a Contactless Micro-Conveyor

Guillaume J. Laurent *, Anne Delettre, Rabah Zeggari, Reda Yahiaoui, Jean-Franc¸ois Manceauand Nadine Le Fort-PiatFEMTO-ST Institute, UFC-ENSMM-UTBM-CNRS, Universite de Franche-Comt´ e,´Besanc¸on 25000, France; E-Mails: anne.delettre@femto-st.fr (A.D.); rabah.zeggari@femto-st.fr (R.Z.);reda.yahiaoui@femto-st.fr (R.Y.); jfmanceau@femto-st.fr (J.-F.M.); nadine.piat@ens2m.fr (N.L.F.-P.)* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: guillaume.laurent@ens2m.fr;Tel.: +33-3-8140-2808; Fax: +33-3-8140-2809.Received: 28 November 2013; in revised form: 16 December 2013 / Accepted: 6 February 2014 /Published: 12 February 2014Abstract: The micro-conveyor is a 9 9 mm

Optics and microsystems for in vitro fertilization

There are various difficulties which reduce the percentage of success in human in vitro fertilization (IVF). One of them concerns the choice of the oocyte to be fertilized. Up to now, the selection of the mature cell to be employed essentially relies on subjective criteria. Most biologists visually estimate the morphological properties of the oocyte. Some of the microsystems we are currently developing in our laboratory propose a solution to the objective determination of some of the oocyte properties, with the ulterior motive of grouping the microsystems in a single Lab-On-Chip (LOC). In this paper, we present these microsystems or techniques (microfluidic platform, microoptics, micromechanics, and image processing) together with the first experimental results that have been achieved. To conclude, we would like to say that the systems we describe are unique and that the results we have obtained up to now cannot be achieved using any other IVF techniques. Also, these studies have been approved by the local ethics committee.

Enhanced chemiluminescence-based detection on gold substrate after electrografting of diazonium precursor-coated gold nanoparticles

Since it was demonstrated that nanostructured surfaces are more efficient for the detection based on the specific capture of analytes, there is a real need to develop strategies for grafting nanoparticles onto flat surfaces. Among the different routes for the functionalization of a surface, the reduction of diazonium salts appears very attractive for the covalent immobilization of nanoparticles because this method does not require a pre-treatment of the surface. For achieving this goal, gold nanoparticles coated by precursor of diazonium salts were synthesized by reduction of gold salt in presence of mercaptoaniline. These mercaptoaniline-coated gold nanoparticles (Au@MA) were successfully immobilized onto various conducting substrates (indium tin oxide (ITO), glassy carbon (GC) and gold electrodes with flat terraces) after addition of sodium nitrite at fixed potential. When applied onto the gold electrodes, such a grafting strategy led to an obvious enhancement of the luminescence of luminol used for the biodetection.

Thin amorphous silicon oxide ICPECVD layer on gold surface for surface plasmon resonance measurements

The present study demonstrates that thin layers of amorphous silicon oxide (SiOx) grown by inductively-coupled plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (ICPECVD) technology at lower temperatures can be successfully combined with biosensors. In particular, gold-amorphous silica (Au/SiOx) interfaces were investigated for their potential applications as a low-cost Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) sensor chip. We report here on the fabrication and characterization of stable and good reliabilities of SiOx deposited at 80°C at different pressures. The refractive index (n) of SiOx varied from 1.456 to 1.462. The results show that the sensitivity and minimum light reflectivity at the resonance angle is extremely sensitive to any changes in the index of refraction and any changes in optical thickness.