Plasmon-Enhanced Chiroptical Biosensors

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Polarimetry has been used for over two hundred years to detect and characterise inherently chiral biomolecules andbiomaterials. In this proposal we will use a 21st century "re-boot" of polarimetry, which uses chiral evanescentelectromagnetic fields produced by chiral plasmonic nanostructures instead of circularly polarised light, to achieve (sub)picogram detection / characterisation of an analyte. We will develop biosensors that use plasmon-enhanced polarimetry,superpolarimetry, to both transduce binding events and provide structural information on the bound analyte. These sensorswill provide label-free detection of analytes, and will be applied in an array-based format to the analysis of complex biofluidswhile providing fundamental information on nanoscale chiroptical phenomena.The vision at the heart of our research is the creation of a new sensor platform based on plasmon-enhanced chiropticaleffects. In addition to this goal, we expect that we will obtain fundamental advances in the understanding of chiropticalbehavior. In the course of our research we will develop new high-throughput methods to fabricate sensors, opening uppotential real-world applications of superpolarimetry. Taken together, our expectation is that the proposed research willprovide the foundational research required to bridge the gap between fundamental discovery and a widely useable sensorplatform.