Ultrasensitive plasmonic biosensing

We demonstrate ultrasensitive detection of malaria aptamers performed with the help of graphene protected copper plasmonics. Using better morphology of copper surface as compared to gold, phase sensitive surface plasmon resonance schemes and graphene functionalization protocol for attaching end-tethering of DNA probes we were able to improve the detection level of malaria aptamers by an order of magnitude. This opens a way to associate a dormant bacterial population with chronic inflammatory diseases in blood samples using simple label-free optical detection.