Sensing

Nanoscale materials, among other application fields, offer several opportunities to transduce the interaction with the molecular environment. This makes them suitable for sensing and biosensing. In the group we focus on:

  • SEIRA. We take advantage of the group expertise in nanoscale materials and in nanophotonics to realize plasmonic sensors capable of amplifying the vibration fingerprints of molecules. In particuar we focus on the detection of toxic volatile organic compounds such as benzene, at very low concentration (ppb range).

  • Nanogaps. The capability of achieving nanogaps in the range of 0.4-5 nm in a controlled fashion, gives us the opportunity to access to a realm that is very difficult to explore with standard nanofabrication approaches. We investigate the use of this nanogaps for sensing purposes and we aim at developing a platform that can be useful for quantum plasmonics.


Selected Publications

  1. J. Nunez, J. Grand, S. Mintova, A. Boersma, B. Sciacca
    SEIRA detection of benzene at ppb levels
    Manuscript in preparation

  2. B. Sciacca and T. M. Monro
    Dip Biosensor Based on Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance at the Tip of an Optical Fiber
    Langmuir 30, 946 (2014) ➡ pdf

  3. B. Sciacca, E. Secret, S. Pace, P. Gonzalez, F. Geobaldo, F. Quignard, F. Cunin
    Chitosan-functionalized porous silicon optical transducer for the detection of carboxylic acid-containing drugs in water
    Journal of Materials Chemistry 21, 2294 (2011) ➡ pdf

  4. B. Sciacca, F. Frascella, A. Venturello, P. Rivolo, E. Descrovi, F. Giorgis, F. Geobaldo
    Doubly resonant porous silicon microcavities for enhanced detection of fluorescent organic molecules
    Sensors & Actuators B:Chemical 137, 467 (2009) ➡ pdf


Core-shell Nanowire cross-section

Nanogap between two nanocubes