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Microwave-Triggered Chemiluminescence with Planar Geometrical Aluminum Substrates: Theory, Simulation and Experiment

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Abstract

Previously we combined common practices in protein detection with chemiluminescence, microwave technology, and metal-enhanced chemiluminescence to demonstrate that we can use low power microwaves to substantially increase enzymatic chemiluminescent reaction rates on particulate silvered substrates. We now describe the applicability of continuous aluminum metal substrates to potentially further enhance or “trigger” enzymatic chemiluminescence reactions. Furthermore, our results suggest that the extent of chemiluminescence enhancement for surface and solution based enzyme reactions critically depends on the surface geometry of the aluminum film.

In addition, we also use FDTD simulations to model the interactions of the incident microwave radiation with the aluminum geometries used. We demonstrate that the extent of microwave field enhancement for solution and surface based chemiluminescent reactions can be ascribed to “lightning rod” effects that give rise to different electric field distributions for microwaves incident on planar aluminum geometries. With these results, we believe that we can spatially and temporally control the extent of triggered chemiluminescence with low power microwave (Mw) pulses and maximize localized microwave triggered metal-enhanced chemiluminescence (MT-MEC) with optimized planar aluminum geometries. Thus we can potentially further improve the sensitivity of immunoassays with significantly enhanced signal-to-noise ratios.

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Notes

  1. With regard to the surface assays, the incubation chamber for the 2.5 × 2.5 mm2 aluminum square sample has a small area of exposed glass. Consequently, we suspected that it is possible that protein adsorption to glass and Al coated with SiOx are not equivalent. The results in Fig. 3 would suggest that protein binds more readily to the glass than the aluminum, which would explain the dramatic surface enhancement for the smaller area aluminum substrates. If this was the case, the surface reaction results in Fig. 2 would display a similar trend, whereby the glass substrate would show greater enhancements than aluminum. Since this is not our observation, we believe that this effect is not an artifact of nonequivalent surface loading of the two substrates.

Abbreviations

BSA:

Bovine Serum Albumin

FDTD:

Finite-Difference Time Domain

HRP:

Horseradish peroxidase

MAMEF:

Microwave-Accelerated Metal-Enhanced Fluorescence

MEF:

Metal-Enhanced Fluorescence

MT-MEC:

Microwave-Triggered Metal-Enhanced Chemiluminescence

Mw:

Low-Power Microwave heating

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the National Center for Research Resources, RR008119 (partial salary to CDG). Salary support to the authors from UMBI / MBC and the IoF is also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Fluorescence, Laboratory for Advanced Fluorescence Spectroscopy & Laboratory for Advanced Medical Plasmonics, Medical Biotechnology Center, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, 725 West Lombard St., Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA

    Michael J. R. Previte & Chris D. Geddes

  2. Center for Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Medical Biotechnology Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 725 West Lombard St, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA

    Chris D. Geddes

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  1. Michael J. R. Previte
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Correspondence to Chris D. Geddes.

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Previte, M.J.R., Geddes, C.D. Microwave-Triggered Chemiluminescence with Planar Geometrical Aluminum Substrates: Theory, Simulation and Experiment. J Fluoresc 17, 279–287 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-007-0170-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-007-0170-8

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