On-Glass Optoelectronic Platform for On-Chip Detection of DNA

Lab-on-chip are analytical systems which, compared to traditional methods, offer significant reduction of sample, reagent, energy consumption and waste production. Within this framework, we report on the development and testing of an optoelectronic platform suitable for the on-chip detection of fluorescent molecules. The platform combines on a single glass substrate hydrogenated amorphous silicon photosensors and a long pass interferential filter. The design of the optoelectronic components has been carried out taking into account the spectral properties of the selected fluorescent molecule. We have chosen the [Ru(phen)2(dppz)]2+ which exhibits a high fluorescence when it is complexed with nucleic acids in double helix. The on-glass optoelectronic platform, coupled with a microfluidic network, has been tested in detection of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) reaching a detection limit as low as 10 ng/µL.