In situ temperature-compensated DNA hybridization detection using a dual-channel optical fiber sensor

Abstract

A multifunction, high-sensitivity, and temperature-compensated optical fiber DNA hybridization sensor combining surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and Mach-Zehnder interference (MZI) has been designed and implemented. We demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, the dual-parameter measurement of temperature and refractive index (RI) by simultaneously using SPR and MZI in a simple single-mode fiber (SMF)-no-core fiber (NCF)-SMF structure. The experimental results show RI sensitivities of 930 and 1899 nm/RIU and temperature sensitivities of 0.4 and -1.4 nm/°C for the MZI and SPR, respectively. We demonstrate a sensitivity matrix used to simultaneously detect both parameters, solving the problem of temperature interference of RI variation-based biosensors. In addition, the sensor can also distinguish biological binding events by detecting the localized RI changes at the fiber's surface. We realize label-free sensing of DNA hybridization detection by immobilizing probe DNA (pDNA) onto the fiber as the probe to capture complementary DNA (cDNA). The experimental results show that the sensor can qualitatively detect cDNA after temperature compensation, and the limit of detection (LOD) of the sensor reaches 80 nM. The proposed sensor has advantages of high sensitivity, real time, low cost, temperature compensation, and low detection limit and is suitable for in situ monitoring, high-precision sensing of DNA molecules, and other related fields, such as gene diagnosis, kinship judgment, environmental monitoring, and so on.