🔬 Seeing proteins in their natural state — label‑free detection, UV autofluorescence, plasmonic nanoantennas, and real‑time nanopore translocation.
MSCA · GA 101072818Aromatic amino acids emit faint UV fluorescence — no labels needed. FLCS (Fluorescence Lifetime Correlation Spectroscopy) separates protein signal from background, delivering a 10× improvement in detection limit.
Metallic nanoantennas concentrate light to volumes far below the diffraction limit. Each translocation event produces a distinct fluorescence burst, revealing size, dynamics, and identity of individual proteins.
Conjugated polymer PFO mimics conformational flexibility, folding and aggregation. Coupled to Ag‑SiO₂ plasmonic nanoparticles, it shows enhanced emission intensity, accelerated radiative decay, and improved temporal response — now under revision in Nature Photonics.
Hybrid nanocomposites exhibit high emission yield and fast kinetics under high‑energy excitation. Plasmonic near‑fields boost signal and speed — promising for lower‑dose radiation detection.
Gold nanoparticles (25–88 nm) with LSPR from 522 nm to 561 nm. SERS of RNAse A, crystal violet, and CdSe QDs shows size‑dependent enhancement and aggregation‑controlled hotspot formation (NaCl / MgSO₄).
Hexynyl‑functionalised DNA cages position reporters inside plasmonic hotspots. Random forest classification identifies four proteins (LYSO, BSA, etc.) with 85 % accuracy, discriminating sequence & secondary structure.
Circular metallic grooves focus light to the central pore (nanoscale optical lens). A thin ferromagnetic layer generates magnetic tweezers to trap magnetoplasmonic nanoparticles near the sensing zone — longer observation, better signals.
Instead of fast, random flow, the system guides, slows, and holds tagged particles inside the hotspot. This hybrid platform boosts sensitivity and reliability for diagnostics, sequencing, and single‑molecule analysis.