Immunoassays, creation

One of the most important potential uses for bilayer microfluidics is the creation of quantitative on-chip immunoassays. Using parallel arrays of microchannels allows an entire... 

Simultaneous with the light s reflection off the internal surface of the fiber is the creation of an electromagnetic field at the external surface of the fiber core. This field extends into the surrounding media and is called the evanescent wave. The intensity of the field decays exponentially as the distance from the surface of the probe increases. The effective distance this field penetrates the external media is less than one wavelength of light and is very sensitive to the incident angle the refractive indexes of the internal media (n ), and external media (n2). For the typical optical fiber used in an immunoassay with a fused silica core surrounded by an aqueous media, the penetration depth of the evanescent wave is on the order of 100 nm. 

Since the subject of the immunoassay may not be familiar to readers whose interests are in the field of organometallic chemistry, we will begin this chapter with a brief overview of the prindple behind the immunoassay method before describing the synthesis of organometallic tracers and reviewing the various detection methods that have facilitated the creation of novel immunoassays. 

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