scholarly journals Cocaine Detection by a Laser-Induced Immunofluorometric Biosensor

Biosensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 313
Author(s):  
Martin Paul ◽  
Robert Tannenberg ◽  
Georg Tscheuschner ◽  
Marco Ponader ◽  
Michael G. Weller

The trafficking of illegal drugs by criminal networks at borders, harbors, or airports is an increasing issue for public health as these routes ensure the main supply of illegal drugs. The prevention of drug smuggling, including the installation of scanners and other analytical devices to detect small traces of drugs within a reasonable time frame, remains a challenge. The presented immunosensor is based on a monolithic affinity column with a large excess of immobilized hapten, which traps fluorescently labeled antibodies as long as the analyte cocaine is absent. In the presence of the drug, some binding sites of the antibody will be blocked, which leads to an immediate breakthrough of the labeled protein, detectable by highly sensitive laser-induced fluorescence with the help of a Peltier-cooled complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) camera. Liquid handling is performed with high-precision syringe pumps and microfluidic chip-based mixing devices and flow cells. The biosensor achieved limits of detection of 7 ppt (23 pM) of cocaine with a response time of 90 s and a total assay time below 3 min. With surface wipe sampling, the biosensor was able to detect 300 pg of cocaine. This immunosensor belongs to the most sensitive and fastest detectors for cocaine and offers near-continuous analyte measurement.

Author(s):  
Martin Paul ◽  
Robert Tannenberg ◽  
Georg Tscheuschner ◽  
Marco Wilke ◽  
Michael G. Weller

The trafficking of illegal drugs by criminal networks at borders, harbors, or airports is an increasing issue in public health as these routes ensure the main supply of illegal drugs. The prevention of drug smuggling, including the installation of scanners and other analytical devices to detect ultra-small traces of drugs within a reasonable time frame, remains a challenge. The presented immunosensor is based on a monolithic affinity column with a large excess of immobilized hapten, which traps fluorescently labeled antibodies as long as the analyte cocaine is absent. In the presence of the drug, some binding sites of the antibody will be blocked, which leads to an immediate breakthrough of the labeled protein, detectable by highly sensitive laser-induced fluorescence with the help of a Peltier-cooled complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) camera. Liquid handling is performed with high-precision syringe pumps and microfluidic chip-based mixing devices and flow cells. The biosensor achieved limits of detection of 23 pM (7 ppt) of cocaine with a response time of 90 seconds and a total assay time below 3 minutes. With surface wipe sampling, the biosensor was able to detect 300 pg of cocaine. This immunosensor belongs to the most sensitive and fastest detectors for cocaine and offers near-continuous analyte measurement.


Biosensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Martin Paul ◽  
Georg Tscheuschner ◽  
Stefan Herrmann ◽  
Michael G. Weller

The illegal use of explosives by terrorists and other criminals is an increasing issue in public spaces, such as airports, railway stations, highways, sports venues, theaters, and other large buildings. Security in these environments can be achieved by different means, including the installation of scanners and other analytical devices to detect ultra-small traces of explosives in a very short time-frame to be able to take action as early as possible to prevent the detonation of such devices. Unfortunately, an ideal explosive detection system still does not exist, which means that a compromise is needed in practice. Most detection devices lack the extreme analytical sensitivity, which is nevertheless necessary due to the low vapor pressure of nearly all explosives. In addition, the rate of false positives needs to be virtually zero, which is also very difficult to achieve. Here we present an immunosensor system based on kinetic competition, which is known to be very fast and may even overcome affinity limitation, which impairs the performance of many traditional competitive assays. This immunosensor consists of a monolithic glass column with a vast excess of immobilized hapten, which traps the fluorescently labeled antibody as long as no explosive is present. In the case of the explosive 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), some binding sites of the antibody will be blocked, which leads to an immediate breakthrough of the labeled protein, detectable by highly sensitive laser-induced fluorescence with the help of a Peltier-cooled complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) camera. Liquid handling is performed with high-precision syringe pumps and chip-based mixing-devices and flow-cells. The system achieved limits of detection of 1 pM (1 ppt) of the fluorescent label and around 100 pM (20 ppt) of TNT. The total assay time is less than 8 min. A cross-reactivity test with 5000 pM solutions showed no signal by pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), 1,3,5-trinitroperhydro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX), and octahydro-1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocine (HMX). This immunosensor belongs to the most sensitive and fastest detectors for TNT with no significant cross-reactivity by non-related compounds. The consumption of the labeled antibody is surprisingly low: 1 mg of the reagent would be sufficient for more than one year of continuous biosensor operation.


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 804
Author(s):  
Gibeom Shin ◽  
Kyunghwan Kim ◽  
Kangseop Lee ◽  
Hyun-Hak Jeong ◽  
Ho-Jin Song

This paper presents a variable-gain amplifier (VGA) in the 68–78 GHz range. To reduce DC power consumption, the drain voltage was set to 0.5 V with competitive performance in the gain and the noise figure. High-Q shunt capacitors were employed at the gate terminal of the core transistors to move input matching points for easy matching with a compact transformer. The four stages amplifier fabricated in 40-nm bulk complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) showed a peak gain of 24.5 dB at 71.3 GHz and 3‑dB bandwidth of more than 10 GHz in 68–78 GHz range with approximately 4.8-mW power consumption per stage. Gate-bias control of the second stage in which feedback capacitances were neutralized with cross-coupled capacitors allowed us to vary the gain by around 21 dB in the operating frequency band. The noise figure was estimated to be better than 5.9 dB in the operating frequency band from the full electromagnetic (EM) simulation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aryan Afzalian

AbstractUsing accurate dissipative DFT-NEGF atomistic-simulation techniques within the Wannier-Function formalism, we give a fresh look at the possibility of sub-10-nm scaling for high-performance complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) applications. We show that a combination of good electrostatic control together with high mobility is paramount to meet the stringent roadmap targets. Such requirements typically play against each other at sub-10-nm gate length for MOS transistors made of conventional semiconductor materials like Si, Ge, or III–V and dimensional scaling is expected to end ~12 nm gate-length (pitch of 40 nm). We demonstrate that using alternative 2D channel materials, such as the less-explored HfS2 or ZrS2, high-drive current down to ~6 nm is, however, achievable. We also propose a dynamically doped field-effect transistor concept, that scales better than its MOSFET counterpart. Used in combination with a high-mobility material such as HfS2, it allows for keeping the stringent high-performance CMOS on current and competitive energy-delay performance, when scaling down to virtually 0 nm gate length using a single-gate architecture and an ultra-compact design (pitch of 22 nm). The dynamically doped field-effect transistor further addresses the grand-challenge of doping in ultra-scaled devices and 2D materials in particular.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 238
Author(s):  
Jakub Šalplachta ◽  
Tomáš Zikmund ◽  
Marek Zemek ◽  
Adam Břínek ◽  
Yoshihiro Takeda ◽  
...  

In this article, we introduce a new ring artifacts reduction procedure that combines several ideas from existing methods into one complex and robust approach with a goal to overcome their individual weaknesses and limitations. The procedure differentiates two types of ring artifacts according to their cause and character in computed tomography (CT) data. Each type is then addressed separately in the sinogram domain. The novel iterative schemes based on relative total variations (RTV) were integrated to detect the artifacts. The correction process uses the image inpainting, and the intensity deviations smoothing method. The procedure was implemented in scope of lab-based X-ray nano CT with detection systems based on charge-coupled device (CCD) and scientific complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (sCMOS) technologies. The procedure was then further tested and optimized on the simulated data and the real CT data of selected samples with different compositions. The performance of the procedure was quantitatively evaluated in terms of the artifacts’ detection accuracy, the comparison with existing methods, and the ability to preserve spatial resolution. The results show a high efficiency of ring removal and the preservation of the original sample’s structure.


2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (16) ◽  
pp. 5540-5551
Author(s):  
Almudena Notario-Estévez ◽  
Xavier López ◽  
Coen de Graaf

This computational study presents the molecular conduction properties of polyoxovanadates V6O19 (Lindqvist-type) and V18O42, as possible successors of the materials currently in use in complementary metal–oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology.


Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 1272
Author(s):  
Zhihua Fan ◽  
Qinling Deng ◽  
Xiaoyu Ma ◽  
Shaolin Zhou

In recent decades, metasurfaces have emerged as an exotic and appealing group of nanophotonic devices for versatile wave regulation with deep subwavelength thickness facilitating compact integration. However, the ability to dynamically control the wave–matter interaction with external stimulus is highly desirable especially in such scenarios as integrated photonics and optoelectronics, since their performance in amplitude and phase control settle down once manufactured. Currently, available routes to construct active photonic devices include micro-electromechanical system (MEMS), semiconductors, liquid crystal, and phase change materials (PCMs)-integrated hybrid devices, etc. For the sake of compact integration and good compatibility with the mainstream complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process for nanofabrication and device integration, the PCMs-based scheme stands out as a viable and promising candidate. Therefore, this review focuses on recent progresses on phase change metasurfaces with dynamic wave control (amplitude and phase or wavefront), and especially outlines those with continuous or quasi-continuous atoms in favor of optoelectronic integration.


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