Decoration of Porous Silicon with Gold Nanoparticles via Layer-by-Layer Nanoassembly for Interferometric and Hybrid Photonic/Plasmonic (Bio)sensing

Gold nanoparticle layers (AuNPLs) enable the coupling of morphological, optical, and electrical properties of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with tailored and specific surface topography, making them exploitable in many bioapplications (e.g., biosensing, drug delivery, and photothermal therapy). Herein, we report the formation of AuNPLs on porous silicon (PSi) interferometers and distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) for (bio)sensing applications via layer-by-layer (LbL) nanoassembling of a positively charged polyelectrolyte, namely, poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH), and negatively charged citrate-capped AuNPs. Decoration of PSi interferometers with AuNPLs enhances the Fabry-Pérot fringe contrast due to increased surface reflectivity, resulting in an augmented sensitivity for both bulk and surface refractive index sensing, namely, about 4.5-fold using NaCl aqueous solutions to infiltrate the pores and 2.6-fold for unspecific bovine serum albumin (BSA) adsorption on the pore surface, respectively. Sensitivity enhancing, about 2.5-fold, is also confirmed for affinity and selective biosensing of streptavidin using a biotinylated polymer, namely, negatively charged poly(methacrylic acid) (b-PMAA). Further, decoration of PSi DBR with AuNPLs envisages building up a hybrid photonic/plasmonic optical sensing platform. Both photonic (DBR stop-band) and plasmonic (localized surface plasmon resonance, LSPR) peaks of the hybrid structure are sensitive to changes of bulk (using glucose aqueous solutions) and surface (due to BSA unspecific adsorption) refractive index. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report about the formation of AuNPLs via LbL nanoassembly on PSi for (i) the enhancing of the interferometric performance in (bio)sensing applications and (ii) the building up of hybrid photonic/plasmonic platforms for sensing and perspective biosensing applications.