Development of a micro biochip integrated traveling wave micropumps and surface plasmon resonance imaging sensors

Since most of miniaturized surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing systems need commercially available peristaltic or syringe pumps, it is difficult to reduce the system size, biosample volume, and the production cost. In this paper, a compact biochip for clinical diagnosis is presented. The proposed biochip is integrated traveling wave micropumps and SPR imaging sensors on one chip. The micropump is composed of flexible microchannel and piezoelectric bimorph actuator array, and achieved the maximum flow rate 336 μl/min. The SPR imaging biosensor can quantitatively measure biosamples with multi microchannels, i.e. one biosample and two reference flows to obtain an analytical curve. The SPR imaging measurements with bovine serum albumin solutions were carried out using the prototype of the proposed diagnostic system composed of a pair of the micropump and the sensor. Since the clear SPR signal curve was observed, it was confirmed that the proposed system can be applicable to the clinical diagnosis.