Enhanced surface plasmon resonance detection of DNA hybridization based on ZnO nanorod arrays

We demonstrated an enhanced surface plasmon resonance detection incorporating ZnO nanorod arrays (NRAs) built on a thin gold film. ZnO NRAs were fabricated by wet chemical growth method and used for the detection of DNA hybridization. Experimental results exhibited that ZnO NRAs provided a notable sensitivity improvement by more than 3 times, which is attributed to an increase in the surface reaction area. The measured sensitivity enhancement matched well with the numerical analyses based on the effective medium theory. Our approach is intended to show the feasibility and extend the applicability of the ZnO-based SPR biosensor to diverse biomolecular binding events.