Performance of an organic photodiode as an optical detector and its application to fluorometric flow-immunoassay for IgA

The performance of an organic thin film photodiode (OPD), fabricated from a hetero-junction comprised of two layers of C60 and a phthalocyanine-Cu(II) complex was evaluated by detecting the chemiluminescence generated from the reaction of luminol with horseradish peroxidase in the presence of H2O2, and the fluorescence from resorufin, as an optical detector. The photocurrent of the OPD was linear with respect to the power of light from a commercial LED. The sensitivity of the OPD was sufficient for detecting chemiluminescence with a power 0.1 μW/cm2. The OPD was successfully used in a flow-immunoassay for IgA, a marker of human stress, in which a sandwich immunoassay was carried out on the microchip and the fluorescence from resorufin, produced by the enzymatic reaction, was detected. The detection limits for resorufin and IgA were 5.0 μM and 16 ng/mL, respectively. The photosensitivity of the OPD remained relatively constant for a minimum of one year.