Intellectual Property Office
Non-Confidential Disclosures
“Methods to Enhanced Surface Plasmon Resonances, and Systems Relating Thereto”
PSU Inv. Disc. No 3433
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Keywords
Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR), SPR Imaging Systems, High Throughput Analysis, High resolution lithography and High Speed Information on Computer Chips
Inventors:
Akhlesh Lakhtakia, Michael Allen Motyka
Links:
Inventor Website
Background:
Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) is a quantum-electromagnetic phenomenon arising from the interaction of light with free electrons at the interface of a metal and a dielectric material. A classical understanding of the surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) is in terms of a surface electromagnetic wave that propagates along the interface and decays exponentially with distance normal to the interface. SPP waves are highly sensitive to conditions at the interface. The SPP wave changes are measurable. SPR has at least three (3) major technoscientific applications: sensing, imaging, and information transmission. In current technology, only a single train of SPPs of a specific frequency can be excited on the planar interface of a metal and a dielectric material (which is taken to be usually isotropic and generally homogenous).
Invention description:
The Penn State inventors have conceived and are in the process of reducing to practice an invention, which permits multiple trains of surface plasmon positrons to be excited at the same time. This reconfiguration of some fundamental elements of SPR devices is anticipated to allow for 1) multiple trains of the same frequency to be independently excited, 2) some trains to be co-propagating while other trains could be counter-propagating, and 3) have trains of different polarization states.
Advantages:
- Possible benefits for: proteomic analysis, drug discovery, and pathway elucidation
- Has been successfully applied to the screening of bioaffinity interactions with DNA,
carbohydrates, peptides, phage display libraries, and proteins
- May be useful for high-resolution lithography
- Increases confidence in reported measurements while also allowing more than one analyte
to be sensed at the same time, thereby increasing the capabilities of multi-analyte sensors
- For imaging applications: the simultaneous creation of two images may become possible
- For plasmonic communications: the availability of multiple channels would make information
transmission more reliable as well as with increased capacity
Contact:
Matthew Smith
Sr. Technology Licensing Officer
Intellectual Property Office
113 Technology Center
The Pennsylvania State Univ.
University Park, PA 16802-7000
Phone: (814) 863-1212
Fax: (814) 865-3591
E-mail:mds126@psu.edu |
