The present disclosure is directed to systems for tuning nanocube plasmonic resonators and methods for forming tunable plasmonic resonators. A tunable plasmonic resonator system can include a substrate and a nanostructure positioned on a surface of the substrate. The substrate can include a semiconductor material having a carrier density distribution. A junction can be formed between the nanostructure and the substrate forming a Schottky junction. Changing the carrier density distribution of the semiconductor material can change a plasmonic response of the plasmonic resonator.

A plasmonic sensor, having at least a substrate, a laser processed active surface area on the said substrate, and a metal coating on the activate surface, where the laser processed surface is fabricated by means of short laser pulses in such a way that in a shallow layer of the surface material, the viscosity is reduced and under the influence of the same pulse, which was used to reduce the viscosity, or a successive incident one or more pulses a self-organized, stochastic nanostructure is formed, which has features smaller than 1 μm. In some implementations, the substrate material is amorphous, such as soda-lime glass or similar. Also disclosed is a slide and/or a slip cover, which are used in microscopy, for forming the active sensor area on top surface of it.

A target analyte in a matrix is sensed using a sensor device having protrusions [500] such as e.g. nanorods, containing free charge carriers. Conformational molecules [504, 506] are bound at a first end to the protrusions, and bound at a second end to a label [502] e.g. a nanoparticle, that is free to move relative to the protrusions. The conformational molecule changes its conformation when bound to the analyte, thereby changing the distance and/or the relative orientation of the label to the protrusion. Energy [510] is used to excite free electrons in the protrusion near a plasmon resonance and resulting optical radiation [514] at wavelengths near the plasmon resonance wavelength is detected [516] and analyzed [518] to determined the presence/concentration of the analyte.

In one embodiment, the present invention relates to a method for establishing a solvent correction curve as well as using the curve for obtaining a corrected sensorgram or corrected report points from a sensorgram of an analyte. In another embodiment, the present invention provides an analytical system for studying molecular interactions, which comprises computer processing means including program code means for performing the steps of the methods. Also provided is a computer program product comprising program code means stored on a computer readable medium or carried on an electrical or optical signal for performing the steps of the methods.

A tunable colorimetric sensor/optical filter is based on a lithography-free, asymmetric Fabry-Perot cavity. The sensor has a thin-film structure formed by a lossy, porous nanoplasmonic top film deposited on an actively tunable spacer middle layer, and a reflective base layer (either a metal or semiconductor). The structure is fabricated using wafer-scale PVD processes, and the middle layer responds to the presence of a stimulus in the local environment, by expanding in thickness resulting in a shift in resonance wavelength and thus an obvious change in color of the sensor, which color change is detectable by the naked-eye. Such layered geometries exhibit vibrant, macroscopic structural coloration owing to the broadband optical absorption of the top film, enabling the change in spacer thickness to be transduced visually, circumventing the need for sophisticated optical equipment for signal readout to observe the presence of the environmental stimulus.

An imaging system uses polarized light to illuminate the target and then uses a polarization filter to remove the light that is reflected from the target without modification. The target can include one or more anisotropic objects that scatter the light and alter the polarization state of the reflected light and causing it to be selectively transmitted to the imaging device which can record the transmitted light through the filter. The illuminating light can be circularly polarized and the filter can remove the circularly polarized light. The target can include asymmetric nanoparticles, such as nanorods that alter the amplitude or phase of the scattered light enabling pass through the filter to be detected by the imaging device.

A plasmonic photoconductor sensing platform is provided. The plasmonic photoconductor sensing platform includes an insulating substrate; a semiconducting film placed on top of the insulating substrate; two metal contacts placed at least in part on the semiconducting film to enforce an electric field; a plurality of plasmonic nanostructures deposited on the semiconducting film and physically separated from metal contacts; an insulating layer, the insulating electrically isolating the plasmonic nanostructures from semiconductor; at least one energy source; and at least one microfluidic channel disposed on the insulating layer.

The present invention provides a multichannel label-free biosensing fiber-optic system, which comprises one or more light sources coupled into optical fibers, one or more optical fiber circuits for performing coupling or/and directional transmission of optical-fiber guided lightwaves, one or more optical-fiber-input and optical-fiber-output optical switches, a plurality of optical fibers provided with label-free optical sensing elements working in the reflection manner on the optical fiber ends, and the light detection parts, wherein the optical-fiber-input and optical-fiber-output optical switch is provided with a plurality of outputs and/or a plurality of inputs, and with the plurality of outputs and/or plurality of inputs, by the switching function, the reflected light from the label-free optical sensing elements working in the reflection manner on the designated optical fiber ends is received by the light detection part, so that multichannel sensing is realized.

A method for fabricating a nanoantenna array may include forming a resist layer on a substrate, forming a focusing layer having a dielectric microstructure array on the resist layer, diffusing light one-dimensionally in a specific direction by using a linear diffuser, forming an anisotropic pattern on the resist layer by illuminating the light diffused by the linear diffuser on the focusing layer and the resist layer, depositing a material suitable for a plasmonic resonance onto the substrate and the resist layer on which the pattern is formed, and forming a nanoantenna array on the substrate by removing the resist layer and the material deposited on the resist layer. A light diffusing angle by the linear diffuser and a size of the dielectric microstructure are determined based on an aspect ratio of the pattern to be formed.

A quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensor is proposed. The QCM sensor comprises a piezoelectric substrate and at least two electrodes in contact with the substrate to induce shear deformations therein through the inverse piezoelectric effect. The substrate has a sensing surface, and, on that surface, a pattern of plasmonic nanoparticle accumulations protruding from the surface. Each accumulation of nanoparticles comprises a plurality of plasmonic nanoparticles arranged about a hump. Plasmonic hot spots are present between neighbouring accumulations of the pattern that are separated a distance that amounts to or to less than the average diameter of the accumulations of the pattern.