A Biomolecular Sensing Platform Using RF Active System

This paper describes a novel and compact biosensing platform using an RF active system. The proposed sensing system is based on the oscillation frequency deviation due to the biomolecular binding mechanism on a resonator. The impedance variation of the resonator, which is caused by a specific biomolecular interaction results in a corresponding change in the oscillation frequency of the oscillator so that this change is used for the discrimination of the biomolecular binding, along with concentration variation. Also, a Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) filter is utilized in order to enhance the biosensing performance of our system. Because the oscillator operates at the skirt frequency range of the SAW filter, a small amount of oscillation frequency deviation is transformed into a large variation in the output amplitude. Next, a power detector is used to detect the amplitude variation and convert it to DC voltage. It was also found that the frequency response of the biosensing system changes linearly with three streptavidin concentrations. Therefore, we expect that the proposed RF biosensing system can be applied to bio/medical applications capable of detecting a nano-sized biomolecular interaction. This paper describes a novel and compact biosensing platform using an RF active system. The proposed sensing system is based on the oscillation frequency deviation due to the biomolecular binding mechanism on a resonator. The impedance variation of the resonator, which is caused by a specific biomolecular interaction results in a corresponding change in the oscillation frequency of the oscillator so that this change is used for the discrimination of the biomolecular binding, along with concentration variation. Also, a Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) filter is utilized in order to enhance the biosensing performance of our system. Because the oscillator operates at the skirt frequency range of the SAW filter, a small amount of oscillation frequency deviation is transformed into a large variation in the output amplitude. Next, a power detector is used to detect the amplitude variation and convert it to DC voltage. It was also found that the frequency response of the biosensing system changes linearly with three streptavidin concentrations. Therefore, we expect that the proposed RF biosensing system can be applied to bio/medical applications capable of detecting a nano-sized biomolecular interaction. KCI Citation Count: 0