Point-of-care plasmonic-photonic multifunction device

该申请是针对第二阶段的合作研发(CRD)项目，作为之前资助的为期一年的长达一期的CRD项目“护理点光纤多功能平台”的直接延续，该项目计划于2015年秋季结束。第一阶段CRD导致开发了一种概念验证设备，用于对生物样本中的基因突变或感染性病原体进行护理点分子诊断测试。虽然斯巴达内部研发团队在拟议设计的基础上进行了改进，并为未来的商业化进行了优化，但我们在这个后续CRD项目中的任务是充分探索各种替代设计，这些设计曾被考虑用于原型，但由于缺乏时间而没有进行。 第二阶段CRD将主要集中于开发版本2设备，以解决一些潜在的关键问题，如可靠性、生产和运营成本以及敏感性。因此，我们的目标将是a)开发一种可靠的等离子体涂层，利用近红外光对样品体积进行高效和均匀的加热，以及b)最大限度地提高可见光出耦合和荧光激发，以及c)增强。我们还将研究d)探索光传输的其他含义，例如多模和无栅格光纤。第一个预原型装置是基于TFBG的，在控制和监测过程的准确性方面代表了最佳的技术解决方案。然而，该技术所提供的能力相当于“矫枉过正”，这一平台的大规模生产和与现有系统的集成可能会导致技术要求更高的产品，这将需要更熟练的操作员，因此对最终用户来说将更加昂贵。因此，拟议的第二阶段CRD将包括与原始的基于TFBG的平台的实验，以及新的廉价和不那么严格但可能更有商业前景的设计。

This application is for a phase II Collaborative Research and Development (CRD) project as a direct continuation of the previously funded one-year long phase I CRD project "Point-of-care fiber optic multifunction platform" that is scheduled to end in the fall of 2015. The phase I CRD resulted in a development of a proof-of-concept device for point of care molecular diagnostic testing of genetic mutations or infectious agents in bio-samples. While the Spartan internal R&D team builds upon the proposed design and optimize the device for future commercialization, our task in this follow-up CRD project is to explore fully a variety of alternative designs that were considered for the prototype but not pursued for lack of time. The phase II CRD will focus primarily on developing a version 2 device to address some potentially critical issues of reliability, cost of production and operation, and sensitivity. As such, our efforts will be aimed at a) developing a reliable plasmonic coating for efficient and uniform heating of the sampling volume using the near-infrared light as well as b) maximizing the visible light out-coupling and fluorescence excitation and c) enhancement. We will also look into d) exploring alternative meanings of light delivery such as multimode and grating-less fibers. The first pre-prototype device was based on TFBG and represents the best technical solution in terms of control and accuracy in monitoring the processes. However capabilities provided by the technology are rather an "overkill" and mass production and integration of this platform with currently available systems would likely result in a technically more demanding product, that would require more skilled operators and would therefore be more expensive to the final user. As such, the proposed phase II CRD will include experiments with the original TFBG based platform in parallel with new inexpensive and less rigorous but potentially commercially more promising designs.