A surface plasmon and guided mode microscope for the micro- to nano-thickness imaging

A surface plasmon and guided mode imaging system has been developed and the images of photoresist and of self assembled monolayer (SAM) patterns on a gold-coated sensor chip were obtained, for the thickness level of /spl mu/m down to nm range. For the future development of multiple arrays of a biosensor system it is necessary to investigate the detection limit of the sensor quantitatively. A possible way of detection was presented in that it is possible to construct and to detect the bindings of nucleic acids, enzymes and proteins down to the thickness of nm scale without labeling, with relatively simple and cheap optical components.