easyNanofab: Large Area Fabrication for Bionanotechnology, Plasmonics and Molecular Nanoscience

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Probably the most important outcome of the explosion of activity in nanoscience and technology over the past couple of decades has been the emergence of powerful new tools for studying and analyzing materials and molecules at very high sensitivity. However, many of these tools rely upon the availability of nanostructured materials - materials consisting of precisely engineered structures - that are difficult to make, and require the availability of expensive and complex instrumentation. For many applications involving molecular and biological materials, these difficulties are daunting. A good illustration is the development of nanooptical techniques for biological analysis: there are now some extraordinarily powerful methods available, that use phenomena such as the plasmonic enhancement of optical activity, and surface enhanced Raman scattering, to make biological detection possible at very high sensitivities. However, the potential for uptake of these methodologies in society (for example, in the National Health Service) is limited unless inexpensive methods can be found for the precise fabrication of miniaturized structures over large areas. The goal of this project is to make that possible, be developing a fast, inexpensive approach to the fabrication of hybrid metal-biomolecule structures. Our preliminary work shows that simple monolayer chemistries can be developed and used in conjunction with interference techniques - that require only a laser and a few lenses - to provide exquisite control over surface structure on length scales down to a few tens of nm - approaching the dimensions of single biomolecules. We aim to try to build a sensor capable of detecting small amounts of DNA that could be the basis for a cheap chip-based screening technique that might be introduced quickly an inexpensively in the NHS.