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Design and manufacturing of a surface plasmon resonance sensor based on inkjet 3D printing for simultaneous measurements of refractive index and temperature

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Abstract 

In this work, a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) multiparameter sensor for simultaneous determination of refractive index and temperature was manufactured through a novel and low-cost approach. Monitoring these parameters is useful when biosensors are developed by exploiting SPR phenomena. A polymer planar optical structure was realized via inkjet 3D printing, by using photo-curable resins having tailored refractive index for device’s core and cladding, respectively. The multiparameter sensor was fully designed, manufactured, and experimentally tested to check the numerical analyses run on a preliminary phase. In such a way, a temperature resolution equal to about 0.5 °C and a refractive index resolution equal to about 2 × 10−4 RIU (refractive index unit) were obtained. Next, even a quality control analysis of the 3D printed surface was carried out by following a novel approach that relies on the profile monitoring technique, with the aim to evaluate the suitability of the design and the geometric accuracy control. In addition, thanks to the cost analysis performed through a properly model, it was proved that the multiparameter sensor designed, manufactured, and tested satisfies the low-cost requirements, being the estimated cost ~ 23 €, which is an absolutely competitive cost if compared with other traditional sensors. In the end, even the performance of the sensor in terms of bulk sensitivity (equal to about 900 nm/RIU) resulted to be higher than similar devices already presented in the state-of-the-art, thus proving the validity of the developed SPR multiparameter sensor both in economic and performance terms.

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Funding

The authors received funding for this project from Università degli Studi di Catania under the Grant Scheme PIACERI with the project MAF-moF “Materiali multifunzionali per dispositive micro-optofluidici.” Gianluca Cicala also received Italian MIUR grant number 20179SWLKA Project Title Multiple Advanced Materials Manufactured by Additive technologies (MAMMA), under the PRIN funding Scheme.

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Author notes

  1. Lorena Saitta and Francesco Arcadio contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania, Viale Andrea Doria 6, 95125, Catania, Italy

    Lorena Saitta, Giovanni Celano, Claudio Tosto & Gianluca Cicala

  2. Department of Engineering, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Via Roma 29, 81031, Aversa, Italy

    Francesco Arcadio, Nunzio Cennamo & Luigi Zeni

  3. INSTM-UDR CT, Viale Andrea Doria 6, 95125, Catania, Italy

    Gianluca Cicala

Authors
  1. Lorena Saitta
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  2. Francesco Arcadio
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  4. Nunzio Cennamo
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Contributions

Lorena Saitta wrote the paper, performed device design and manufacturing, carried out the quality control analysis, and run the cost analysis; Francesco Arcadio wrote the paper and run the numerical and experimental tests; Giovanni Celano carried out the quality control analysis; Gianluca Cicala, Nunzio Cennamo, Luigi Zeni, and Claudio Tosto reviewed the paper.

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Correspondence to Lorena Saitta.

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Saitta, L., Arcadio, F., Celano, G. et al. Design and manufacturing of a surface plasmon resonance sensor based on inkjet 3D printing for simultaneous measurements of refractive index and temperature. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 124, 2261–2278 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-022-10614-4

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