Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) is becoming more and more attractive for the development of biologically active materials, anti-fouling coatings, deposition of anti-microbial layers or even for the development of biological sensors. Indeed, this technique is an energy efficient, environmentally friendly dry process allowing for the surface activation and functionalization without modification of the bulk properties. Nevertheless, it is not common to use plasma deposited layers for the functionalization of the most promising type of optical biosensors, namely, Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) sensors. Moreover, the atmospheric pressure plasma were never used for this purpose, even though this technique is highly promising for the biological and environmental control. SPR biosensors present a mainstay technology for research of macromolecules and their interactions in life sciences and pharmaceutical research. Nevertheless, several improvements of this technique could be done. For example, the process of the bio-immobilization generally requires multi-step wet chemical approaches (mostly self-assembled monolayer growth) representing low deposition rate and a low stability of the grafted molecules at higher temperature and UV irradiation.
In this project, the environment friendly plasma surface functionalization technology is aimed to substitute the wet chemical self-assembled monolayer growth procedure. However, the biosensor application of the plasma polymers requires high stability of the layer in the analyzing solution in order to sustain high durability of the biosensor. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the SPR biosensor will be dependent on the concentration of the receptors immobilized onto the sensor surface and therefore the concentration of the functional groups deposited by plasma must be sufficient. The sensor surface with different types of the surface texture will be prepared and then, its surface will be coated by amine-, carboxyl- or anhydride plasma layers. The immobilization procedure generally suitable for the attachment of antibodies will be employed according to the existing two-step process. Finally, the prepared SPR- biosensor will be tested by the machine Plasmon SPR spectrometer developed by Dr. Ushenin, or using other SPR systems available at CEITEC.