Press Releases | April 28, 2020

Towards diagnostic techniques using smartphones

Associate Prof. Kazuhiro Takahashi and Mr. Shin Kidane (Master's Program) of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology and others developed a test chip using graphene, a sheet material with a thickness of one carbon atom. The chip has a trampoline structure with a narrow gap of 1 micrometer or less formed under a monoatomic graphene film, and can specifically trap a biomarker, a protein included in bodily fluids such as blood, urine or saliva which is derived from a disease, on graphene. The biomarker adsorbed by the graphene generates force which deforms the graphene into a dome shape. The group thus succeeded in detecting the amount of deformation as changes in color using the interference properties of light. It is expected that viruses and diseases will be able to be simply and quickly examined using the developed test chip.

Full text: Success in specific detection of molecules using deformation of a single atomic sheet
TUT website: Press release