TY - CONF A1 - Hernandez Garcia, Maria Amparo A1 - Bell, Jeremy A1 - Rurack, Knut T1 - Characterization and testing of commercial photo-resins for the fabrication of free-form optical elements with standard LCD 3D printer for advanced opto-biosensing applications N2 - Optical biosensors often show remarkable performance and can be configured in many ways for sensitive, selective, and rapid measurements. However, the high-quality and advanced optical assemblies required to read out the sensor signals, for example, Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) or Supercritical Angle Fluorescence (SAF) microscopy, which necessitate complex and expensive optical elements. Particularly in optical method development, researchers or developers are often confronted with limitations because conventional manufacturing processes for optical elements can be restrictive in terms of design, material, time, and cost. Modern and high-resolution 3D printing techniques make it possible to overcome these challenges and enable the fabrication of individualized and personalized free-form optical components, which can reduce costs and significantly shorten the prototyping timeline—from months to hours. In this work, we use a modern, high-resolution (< 22 µm) commercial Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)-based 3D printer, for which we spectroscopically and physically characterized commercial photo-resins printable with the LCD technique in the first step (Figure 1). The aim was not only to produce a printed element with a high surface quality that mitigates the inner filter effects caused by attenuation (high optical density (OD) due to reflection and scattering), but also to select a material with a high refractive index (RI>1.5) and high transmission values (>90% transmittance) in the visible to near-infrared spectral range (approx. 450 – 900 nm) that exhibits little or no autofluorescence. Using a selection of suitable resins, lenses and free-form optical elements were manufactured for comparison with standard glass or plastic counterparts. T2 - Europt(r)ode XVI CY - Birmingham, England DA - 24.03.2024 KW - 3D-printing KW - Optics KW - Photopolymerization KW - Sensors KW - Rapid prototyping PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-59875 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Hernández García, María Amparo A1 - Rurack, Knut A1 - Bell, Jérémy A1 - Weller, Michael G. T1 - SAF-based optical biosensor with 3D-printed free-form optics for targeted explosives immuno-detection N2 - Guaranteeing safety and security of citizens requires a significant effort and innovative tools from national and international agencies and governments, especially when it comes to the field of explosives detection. The need to detect Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and Home-made Explosives (HMEs) at a point of suspicion, has grown rapidly due to the ease with which the precursors can be obtained and the reagents synthesised. The limited availability of immunoanalytical tools for HME detection presents an opportunity for the development of new devices, which enable a rapid detection and recognise the target analyte with high specificity and sensitivity. In this work, we introduce an optical biosensor for highly specific and sensitive HME detection. The immunoassay system is placed in a hydrogel environment permeable to the analyte and transparent to light interrogating the fluorescently labelled antibodies. The readout of the immunoanalytical system is realized with Supercritical Angle Fluorescence (SAF), an advanced microscopy technique. To accomplish this, we made use of recent, commercial high resolution (< 22 µm) Liquid Crystal Display 3D printers to fabricate a parabolic optical element with high refractive index (RI>1.5) and transmission values (>90%) from photo-resin. Aiming at a new generation of sensors, which not only can meet the requirements of trace detection, but can also be used for substance identification, the combination of immunoanalytical recognition with SAF detection offers a modularity and versatility that is principally well suitable for the measurements of target analytes at trace levels. T2 - 8th International conference in Biosensing Technology CY - Seville, Spain DA - 12.05.2024 KW - 3D printing KW - Biosensor KW - Fluorescence KW - Explosives PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-60561 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -