Plasmonic ZnO nanorods/Au substrates for protein microarrays with high sensitivity and broad dynamic range

Microarrays require high sensitivity and a broad dynamic range for high-throughput diagnostics and proteomic analysis. We present the fabrication of novel plasmonic protein microarrays using nanostructured ZnO-Nanorods (ZnO-NRs) on 50 nm Au film that exhibits an enhancement of fluorescence up to 200-fold. The as-prepared plasmonic protein microarrays were used for the detection of the carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) cancer biomarker. The plasmonic enhancement resulted in a detection limit of 27 pg mL−1 in 0.01 M PBS and a dynamic range of 100 pg mL−1 to 100 μg mL−1. The ZnO-NRs/Au substrates can be mass-manufactured, which is highly promising for the development of low cost, sensitive, and high-throughput protein assay platform for applications in clinical diagnosis.