Research

Sri Seemesh Bhaskar, DST-Inspire SRF, SSSIHL, was awarded the Prestigious Dr. K. V. Rao Scientific Society Research Award 2021 at a ceremony held online. Seemesh, won the Bhoutikam Runners-up award in the Physics category, for his innovative research explorations performed at STAR Lab, CRIF, Dept. of Chemistry, SSSIHL on the topic “Hybrid Soret Nano-assembly for Ultrasensitive Surface Plasmon-Coupled Emission and Photonic Crystal-Coupled Emission Interfaces”. The award includes a prize Rs. 10,000/- and a trophy to the runner up in each category.

Dr. K. V. Rao Scientific Society Research award was formed in 2001 and is held annually to promote scientific research, popularize science and encourage young scientists to continue their career in basic sciences. Young researchers from all over the country below the age of 30, working in the field of Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biosciences are selected for the award, based on the scrutiny and recommendations of the panel of judges (eminent scientists) after careful evaluation of research work and the presentations by the candidates in each category of allied sciences. The research work to be presented for the award should also be part of the doctoral program carried out or being carried out by the candidate.
 

This year the prestigious award ceremony was held in the august presence of the President, KVRSS, Mr. Anil Kumar Kutty, I.A.S and Prof. Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, Chancellor of Central University of Rajasthan and NIIT University, an eminent Scientist and Ex-Chairman of ISRO for 9 long years and recipient of three highest civilian honors, The Padma Shri (1982), The Padma Bhushan (1992) and The Padma Vibhushan (2000).

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) congratulates Sri Seemesh Bhaskar for the above prestigious recognition and for making the University proud.

Link for the Dr. K. V. Rao Scientific Society program: https://www.kvrss.org/research-awards.html

YouTube link of the award being presented to Sri Seemesh Bhaskar: https://youtu.be/BdJUbbqHRw0?t=7533

The SSSIHL Research team, led by Asst. Professor, Dr. Sai Sathish Ramamurthy, has published a new paper in ACS Applied Nano Materials that explores the use of a novel biopolymer, Lycoat®, to synthesize silver nanoparticles via a frugal disruptive approach. The augmented enhancements obtained from these nanoparticles were utilized for mobile phone-based attomolar sensing of environmentally hazardous mercury (Hg2+) ions.

Identifying the Issue

• Chemical, microwave and sonication assisted synthesis of nanoparticles have been used frequently. However, the advantages of UV light, an abundant renewable natural source, is seldom discussed which is significantly conducive for the synthesis of nanomaterials
• Metal ions in unregulated concentrations wreak havoc in the ecosystem by entering the food chain. The alarm with regard to mercury poisoning has been raised world-wide and several methodologies are adopted for detection of Hg2+ ions at extremely low concentrations for early diagnosis and environmental monitoring
• There is an urgent need of a frugal science based disruptive technology for the fabrication of nanomaterials to be used in translational applications that are rapid, low-cost and user-friendly, portraying high sensitivity and specificity

Objective of the Research

• Identifying eco-friendly and cost-effective approach for the synthesis of nanoparticles with defined geometries and anisotropy that can aid in achieving augmented fluorescence enhancements
• Improving the sensitivity and specificity of the sensor materials in comparison with the cost intensive and hazardous technologies that are currently being utilized. Sensors are extensively used in environmental health monitoring, public health control, industries and homeland security

Who should read this?

Anyone in industry, working directly or indirectly on sensor development or sensing related technologies including, security, surveillance, monitoring, environmental safety monitoring and medical technologies

Bio-Nano Inspired Anisotropic Interfaces- A Frugal Engineering Green Chemistry Approach

• The eco-friendly and biocompatible methodologies for diverse applications in nanophotonics and biomedical domains are discussed in this work
• Lycoat® is a plant derived biopolymer that complies with the European directive on food additives & USFDA and consequently is considered as a natural food ingredient. It is beneficial for use in patients (wound dressings), consumers and has found useful applications in food, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries. Even though Lycoat® has been used extensively in the industries, it has so far not been explored for the green synthesis of anisotropic nanoparticles
• Three main challenges in the development of nanotechnologies have been addressed theoretically and experimentally in this work. The biosynthesized nanomaterials present: (i) non-toxic bio-inspired frugal science approach for synthesizing nanoparticles, (ii) obtaining augmented fluorescence emission enhancements using anisotropic nanoparticles, (iii) development of sensors with high sensitivity and specificity for the detection of hazardous heavy metal ions

Key Features and Benefits

• Bio-inspired synthesis route for nanoparticles
• Synthesis of anisotropic nanoparticles with defined geometries using a green synthesis nano-approach
• Bio-inspired approach in surface Plasmon-coupled emission platform by utilizing the synthesized nanofractals and nanocubes in three different SPCE interfaces- spacer, cavity and extended cavity architectures
• The multifold nanogaps generated by the nano-engineered hybrids sustain innumerable hotspots catering to attomolar sensitivity of the fluorescent dye molecule, rhodamine B
• The proposed green nanotechnology platform is useful in the sensing of heavy metals that are hazardous to the environment and human health

Impact

• A simple, cost-effective, frugal methodology is adopted to synthesize silver nanoparticles using a plant derived biopolymer- Lycoat® and applied them on a conventional existing sensor technology based on plasmonic platform
• The silver nanofractals (AgNFs) and silver nanocubes (AgNCs) synthesized here using a biocompatible Lycoat® polymer would be of immense use as antibacterial, antifungal, anti-oxidant, anticancer, and antiviral agents
• The well-known ability of the biocompatible Lycoat® polymer as films, and their ability to yield AgNFs and AgNCs (as reported here) upon simple UV exposure is being tested on different cloth materials (masks) to fight the COVID-19 pandemic
• An industry or market seeking such devices with augmented sensitivity could take forward the proposed methodology for utility in environmental safety and industrial applications
• A green approach for nano-engineering of silver nanoparticles and photonic sensor platforms that are of immense benefit for low- and middle-income countries, in resource-limited settings
• The mobile phone-based sensor platform presents a user-eco-friendly and economical detection compared to existing cost intensive spectrophotometers

Team

Sriram Rathnakumar, Seemesh Bhaskar, Aayush Rai, Darisi V. V. Saikumar, Naga Sai Visweswar Kambhampati, Venketesh Sivaramakrishnan and Sai Sathish Ramamurthy. Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Prasanthi Nilayam, Puttaparthi, Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh 515134, India

Paper Published in: ACS Applied Nano Materials

Title: Plasmon-Coupled Silver Nanoparticles for Mobile Phone-Based Attomolar Sensing of Mercury Ions

Read Paper Here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsanm.1c01347

Identifying the Issue

Behavioural finance considers that investors are not completely rational economic agents and are subject to cognitive limitations. About 4266 companies are listed on the U.S stock exchange, and Investors cannot provide equal attention to all the stocks and depend on heuristics and shortcuts. We ask:

“Does firm-initiated tweets grab investor attention and propel them to trade in the stock market”

Objective of the Research

• To create a dataset of the corporate tweets for a sample of thirty large corporations of the U.S.A
• To analyse the relationship between the frequency of firm-initiated tweets and changes in stock returns and trading volume

Who should read this?

Stock market investors, traders, social media managers and corporate communication heads in the U.S.A will find the results valuable

Solution

• Developed an algorithm on R programming language using “rtweet” and “BatchGetSymbols” packages to obtain firm-initiated tweets, stock prices,
  and trading volumes.
• Countered the API per-user per-day limitation by deploying a task scheduler to run a search query at regular intervals without supervision and executed it on the cloud storage using Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) provided by AWS Amazon Web Services.
• Examined the relationship between corporate tweeting behaviour and stock price using Vector Autoregression (VAR) model and used Impulse response function (IRF) to quantify the shock on the stock market from Tweets.
  We observe that a shock in corporate tweeting behaviour translates into a positive effect on changes in trading volume and returns in 73% and 60% of stocks, respectively

Key Features and Benefits

• The results establishing the association between corporate tweeting behaviour and traded values of return and volume will help corporates strategize the impact of their social media communication on the stock market
• Using corporate tweet frequency, investors can build forecasting models to predict future price movements to earn superior returns
• The study contributes to the scarce literature on the analysis of firm-initiated tweets on volumes and provides researchers the opportunity to examine content analysis on firm-initiated tweets

Impact

A study on the adoption and usage of social media by America’s largest companies, the Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts, found that Twitter topped the list. Twitter has revolutionized corporate communication and have become important channels for disseminating information.

The association between corporate tweeting behaviour and the stock market opens up great opportunities for corporations concerning corporate information disclosure. It has opened up a new discussion on the power of communication over actions, where social media users give great weightage to tweets and take decisions. In the 21st century, corporations will focus more on tweets to win the corporate war as “A Tweet is mightier than the sword”.
 

Team

• G Aditya, Research Scholar, Department of Management and Commerce, SSSIHL
• Dr Subramanian S Iyer, Assistant Professor, Department of Management and Commerce, SSSIHL

Title: “Impact of Firm-Initiated Tweets on Stock Return and Trading Volume”

Read Paper Here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15427560.2021.1949717

The International collaboration between the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL), India and Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Japan began in the year 2015 with multiple teams working together from both the institutions. Over the years, the collaboration has grown stronger with multiple student exchanges and internships between the two institutions to work on numerous projects.

In one such successful project, a new research study is now published in Physica E: Low-dimensional Systems and Nanostructures. In this research work, STAR Lab, SSSIHL and Matsumi Lab, JAIST have explored the use of 2D Titania nanotube (TiNT) and its Gold (Au) and Platinum (Pt)-nanoparticles decorated analogues for achieving augmented fluorescence emission using the surface plasmon-coupled emission (SPCE) platform.

Motivation

• Need for alternative 2D materials for plasmon-coupled fluorescence emission enhancement
• Extensive use of 2-Dimensional (2D) carbon material in the past for achieving augmented fluorescence emission
• 2D materials such as graphene has π-plasmons that can induce significant π–π interactions with the fluorophores resulting in decreased fluorescence emission
• Pure graphene is expensive and its synthesis involves cumbersome procedures

Research outcome

• The use of alternative, 2D-carbon type material- TiNT for plasmonic application
• Rapid (30 seconds) electrochemical synthesis of hybrid metal-dielectric spacer and cavity material (Au@TiNT, Pt@TiNT and AuPt@Pt-TiNT) for plasmonic applications
• Novel use of 2D-TiNT and Au and Pt-decorated TiNT in SPCE platform to achieve an excess of 100-fold fluorescence emission enhancement
• Purcell factor-based understanding of enhancement form hybrid metal-dielectric Pt@TiNT

Authors

• STAR Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning: Bebeto Rai, Dr. Venkatesh Srinivasan and Dr. Sai Sathish Ramamurthy
• Matsumi Lab, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology-Japan: Dr. Santhosh Bukka and Prof. Noriyoshi Matsumi

Journal: Physica E: Low-dimensional Systems and Nanostructures

Read Paper Here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physe.2021.114868

Identifying the Issue

a) While there are many vector-host models developed to study the spread of COVID-19 at population level, there are very few works done to understand the interplay of the immune response and the virus particles in the body. None of the current models developed has studied the role and efficacies of HCQ and BCG Vaccination in reducing COVID-19 burden. Furthermore, these models have not considered explicitly the role of inflammatory mediators such as Cytokines and Chemokine’s released by the body in defending the body against the virus.

b) In this work, a within-host mathematical model is developed and optimal control problem is framed to study the role and efficacies of HCQ and BCG Vaccination in reducing the burden of COVID-19

Objective of the Research

• We propose to study the role and efficacies of HCQ and BCG Vaccination in reducing COVID-19 burden by framing an optimal control problem
• Comparative Effectiveness study is also done to support the results obtained in optimal control problem
• Both the above can help to understand the dynamics and control SARS-Cov-2 virus in a better way

Who should read this?

Anyone in the field of Academics and research, working in areas of Mathematics, Bio-Mathematics, Mathematical Modelling, and also Doctors, especially Physicians

Solution

In this work, we consider two scenarios involving the administration of HCQ and BCG vaccine. The findings of these studies include the following: the average infected cell count and viral load decreased the most when both the HCQ and BCG interventions were applied together in both scenarios. On the other hand, the average susceptible cell count decreased the best when HCQ alone was administered in both these scenarios. The basic reproduction number and viral count decreased the best when HCQ and BCG booster interventions were applied together, reinstating the fact obtained earlier in the optimal control setting.

Key Features and Benefits

• It is observed that the viral load decreased the most when both the HCQ and BCG interventions were applied together. This could help doctors and physicians to look for combination therapy as one of the alternatives to stop the multiplication of virus in the body
• The basic reproduction number and viral count decreased the best when HCQ and BCG booster interventions were applied together

Impact

• The work presented in this paper could enhance our understanding of complex interplay of immune response and virus particles in the body
• It can help physicians with decision making in the treatment of life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia

Team

• Bishal Chhetri, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, India
• D K K Vamsi, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, India
• Bhanu Prakash, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, India
• Carani B Sanjeevi, Vice-Chancellor, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, India

Paper Published In: Advances in Dynamical Systems and Application, Volume 16, no. 1, 369-403

Title: “Combined Drug Interventions and its Efficacy in the Reduction of COVID-19 Burden: A Within-Host Modelling Study with reference to HCQ and BCG Vaccination”

Read Paper Here: https://www.ripublication.com/adsa21/v16n1p26.pdf

Dr. V. Prathyusha, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, SSSIHL, Anantapur was recently awarded the ‘Young Scientist Award 2020’ by the Andhra Pradesh Akademi of Sciences (APAS) for her contribution in the field of Chemical Sciences. In addition, Dr. Prathyusha has also been admitted as ‘Associate Fellow’ of the A.P. Akademi of Sciences for the year 2020.

The Young Scientist Awards, was instituted by the Andhra Pradesh Akademi of Sciences, in recognition of the notable research contributions and outstanding work of the young scientists of Andhra Pradesh working in different fields of Science and technology which includes Physical and Mathematical/Engineering Sciences/ Earth, Ocean, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences/ Medical, Health and Sciences/Chemical Sciences/Life Sciences including Agricultural Sciences.

The computational chemistry research team headed by Dr. V. Prathyusha, comprises two research scholars, Mr. Abhishek. H and K.V. S Mani Chandrika and have been actively working on bio-inspired molecules as potential adsorbents, potent bio-active molecules and the SERS of neurotransmitters in the presence of silver clusters. These studies will find useful applications in the field of medicine and environment. The computational studies are also being complemented by synthesis of the bio-active compounds, fabrication of materials and substrates in-house, and experimental SERS studies.

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) congratulates Dr. V. Prathyusha and the team for the above recognition and for making the University proud.

For more on Dr. V.Prathyusha visit https://www.sssihl.edu.in/faculty/v-prathyusha/
 

Identifying the Issue

While there are vector-host models developed to study the dengue virus at population level, very few works performed to understand the dengue viral dynamics in human body. None of the current models as per our study has considered the role of innate immune response in the defence to the dengue viral attack until recently one of them by Rotem Ben-Shachar and Katia Koelle, introduced innate immune response and showed that it can reproduce the characteristic features of the primary infection.

In this paper, a non-linear model is proposed which incorporates innate and adaptive (both cellular and humoral) immune responses, studying the Dengue virus at cellular level using a mathematical model.

Objective of the Research

• We propose to study the dynamics of within-host epidemic model of dengue infection which incorporates both innate immune response and adaptive immune response (Cellular and Humoral)
• The proposed model also incorporates the time delay for production of antibodies from B cells and understand the dynamics of this model using the dynamical systems approach by performing the stability and sensitivity analysis
• Both the above can help detect and control the dengue virus better and understand the dengue viral dynamics in human body

Who should read this?

Those working in the field of Mathematics, Bio-Mathematics, Mathematical Modeling, research, and other related academic fields, and Doctors, especially Physicians.

Solution

The critical level of the antibody recruitment rate(q) was found to be responsible for the existence and stability of various steady states. The stability of endemic state was found to be dependent on time delay. The sensitivity analysis identified the production rate of antibodies (q) to be highly sensitive parameter.

• The existence and stability conditions for the equilibrium states of the disease have been obtained
• The threshold value of time delay has been computed which is critical for change in stability of the endemic state

Key Features and Benefits

• It has been observed that that innate response co-relates with the virus titer in the early stages of the infection which can help in an early detection of a serious disease
• The production rate of antibodies (q) was found to be highly sensitive
• It was observed that the burst rate of virus particles (k) has a predictable behaviour and the rate of infection(β1) is sensitive only in some interval range

Impact

• The works presented in this paper could enhance our understanding of this complex immune response
• The model can help in detection of the disease in the early stages of the infection

Team

• Deva Siva Sai Murari Kanumoori: University of L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy
• D Bhanu Prakash: Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning – SSSIHL, India
• D. K. K. Vamsi: Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning – SSSIHL, India
• Carani B Sanjeevi: Vice-Chancellor, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning -SSSIHL

Paper Published In: Computational and Mathematical Biophysics 9, no. 1 (2021): 66-80

Read Paper Here: https://doi.org/10.1515/cmb-2020-0118

The STAR Lab, SSSIHL, has published a new article in Asian Journal of Psychiatry that presents the task sharing approach as an effective strategy for the detection of perinatal depression in rural area of South India. This study presents a synergistic outcome from the educational and medical institutions established by Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, Founder Chancellor, SSSIHL. This collaborative effort was carried out at Sri Sathya Sai General Hospital (SSSGH), Prasanthi Nilayam over a period of three years. The longitudinal study involved two expert doctors from the SSSGH (Prasanthi Nilayam and Whitefield), three psychiatrists (two from Schizophrenia Research Foundation, Chennai, and one from Government Medical College/Government General Hospital, Anantapur) and a biostatistician from Germany, all of whom worked continuously with the members from the STAR Lab, SSSIHL.

Study and Outcome
In this work, we have assessed the quality of perinatal depression screening by a non-expert in the context of task sharing in a rural Indian maternity service. This is a longitudinal study carried out for three years involving voluntary participation of pregnant women right from the second trimester up to 3 months post-delivery. A qualified midwife (trained by a psychiatrist and doctors from SSSGH) administered the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), a questionnaire that is widely used for identifying possible depressive symptoms in pregnant women and new mothers. With the study participants’ consent, these EPDS sessions were recorded (audio/video) in line with the approval obtained from the SSSIHL institutional ethics committee. As part of the study, these audio/video recordings were analyzed by expert psychiatrists. Several studies have suggested that task-sharing is an effective strategy to monitor perinatal depression (PND), but no study has assessed the quality of PND detection by a non-expert, in the context of task-sharing especially in a rural Indian population. This approach further addresses the shortage of mental health care professionals (MHPs) in resource limited settings, especially in low and middle income countries and promotes remote care solutions during the pandemic. Our research study findings suggest that with adequate training, in the absence of experts (psychiatrists), non-experts (midwives) can be highly effective at task-sharing implemented for screening PND.

Impact
This study has a significant impact on society, particularly in rural areas, with respect to healthcare management. Our research outcome recommends that with sufficient training, non-experts (midwives) can be effective at task-sharing, implemented for the screening of PND at clinical centers where availability of MHPs is limited. The empowerment of non-experts for the given task will also serve as an excellent alternative to address the shortage of MHPs in resource limited areas, especially in rural areas of India. This training can also provide an alternative for remote care even during the pandemic
 

The STAR Lab, SSSIHL, has published a new paper in ACS Applied Nano Materials that demonstrates the use of a novel biopolymer, soluplus-mediated plasmonic nanohybrids for mobile phone-based biosensing applications. This judicious synergy of materials at nanoregime are utilized to revisit and overcome the perpetual problem of Ohmic lossy quenching in metals, thereby demonstrating excellent performance in sensing analytes of interest.

Identifying the Issue

• Sensors are widely used in industrial processes, public health control, homeland security, forensics, environmental health monitoring.
• Photonic nanomaterials made of metallized nanoparticles are globally used for sensor technology development. However, their true potential is plagued by inevitable intrinsic Ohmic losses, that hinder the performance of any sensing platform.
• Therefore, there is a constant need for hybrid material green technologies for global market sensor industries, using nanochemistry-based biocompatible methods.

Objective of the Research

• Identifying fundamental reasons which lead to interband Ohmic losses in terms of basic chemistry and biophysics of nanomaterials.
• Finding an economically viable green technology solution to minimize/prevent the Ohmic losses and improve the performance of plasmonic materials, which in turn translates into superior efficiencies for the industries offering solutions based on sensing technologies.
• Improving the overall sensitivity and specificity of sensor materials in comparison with cost-intensive and hazardous nano-sensor techniques.

Who should read this?
Anyone in industry, working directly or indirectly on sensor development or sensing-related technologies including, security, surveillance, monitoring, environmental safety monitoring, medical technologies, and disease diagnostics. Further, this article will be extremely useful to researchers currently faced with the problem of ‘Losses in plasmonic nanomaterials.

AgAu NanoHyrbid Engineering – A burgeoning practical solution for the problems in biosensors

• The eco-friendly and biocompatible methodologies for diverse applications in nanophotonics and biomedical domains are discussed in this work.
• Soluplus is a graft copolymer of polyvinyl caprolactam – polyvinyl acetate – polyethylene glycol. Although extensively used for improving the solubility and bioavailability of poorly water-soluble drugs, amphiphilic chemical bi-functional properties have so far not been explored for green nanosynthesis.
• The three main long-lasting challenges in plasmonic technology development have been addressed experimentally and theoretically in this research work. The proposed hybrid materials overcome the following caveats: (i) inescapable quenching in the presence of AuNPs, (ii) chemical unsteadiness in AgNPs, and (iii) inherent Ohmic losses in metallized NPs.

Key Features and Benefits

• Use of hybrid plasmonic passages to avoid Ohmic losses.
• Experimental demonstration of dequenched and augmented SPCE enhancement.
• The multifold nanogaps generated by the nano-engineered hybrids sustain innumerable hotspots catering to the attomolar sensitivity of the SPCE reporter molecule, rhodamine B (RhB).
• The proposed green nanotechnology platform is useful in disease diagnostics for monitoring the early stages of the disease and also aid in the fabrication of smart sensor chips for use in Point-of-Care (POC) devices.

Impact

• A simple, user-friendly, cost-effective methodology presenting a state of “dequenching the quenched” phenomenon successfully addressing the decade-long issue of ‘zone of inactivity’ in plasmonics.
• The subject platform is expected to find immediate deployment for real-time POC medical diagnostics. It is strongly believed that this study presents a stepping stone to a plethora of exciting plasmonic nano-architectures and disruptive diagnostics in near future with the aid of Au-Ag-Au noble metal plasmon passage rationality.
• An industry or market seeking such devices with augmented sensitivity could take forward the proposed methodology for utility in early disease diagnostics, environmental safety, and industrial applications.
• A green approach for Nano-engineering of AgAu inter-plasmonic and photonic sensor platforms that are of immense benefit for low- and middle-income countries, in resource-limited settings.
• The mobile phone-based sensor platform presents a user-eco-friendly and economical detector compared to existing high-cost spectrophotometers.

Team

Aayush Rai, Seemesh Bhaskar, Sai Sathish Ramamurthy. STAR Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, CRIF, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Prasanthi Nilayam, Puttaparthi, Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh 515134, India

Paper Published In: ACS Applied Nano Materials

Read Paper Here: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsanm.1c00841

The SSSIHL STAR Lab Research team, led by Asst. Professor Dr. Sai Sathish Ramamurthy, has published a new paper in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces that explores the use of a novel metal-free, graphene oxide-based photonic crystal framework (GraSP engineering) for Biosensing application. It enhances the performance of plasmonic materials and overcomes Ohmic losses in metals.
 

Identifying the Issue

• Sensors are of wide-spread use in industrial processes, public health control, homeland security, safety and monitoring
• Plasmonic materials made of metal nano-architectures are world-wide used for sensor technology development. However, their performance is plagued by inevitable intrinsic Ohmic losses, that impede the performance any sensing platform.
• As a result, there is constant hunt for alternative material technology development for global market sensor industries

Objective of the Research

• Identifying the root cause which leads to Ohmic losses
• Finding a cost-effective non-metal-based solution to minimize/stop the Ohmic losses and improve the performance of plasmonic materials, which in turn translates into greater efficiencies for the industries offering solutions based on sensing technologies
• Explore the possibility of the solution aiding in improving the overall sensitivity and specificity by 3-4 times as compared to existing metal-dependent sensor techniques

Who should read this?
Anyone in the industry, working directly or indirectly on sensor development or sensing related technologies including, security, surveillance, monitoring, environmental safety monitoring, medical technologies, and disease diagnostics.
 

GraSP Engineering – A Eureka moment for the future of Sensing technologies

• The nanophotonic performance of the multistack was analyzed and successfully demonstrated to realize ‘graphene oxide plasmon-coupled soliton emission’ (abbreviated as GraSE) with steering/beaming emission characteristic as well as ‘graphene oxide plasmon-coupled emission’ (abbreviated as GraPE) with directional property
• Since both beaming GraSE and directional GraPE could be captured in a single platform, the combination led to the birth of GraSP emission platform
• An everyday example of soliton is a self-sustaining water bubble that maintains its shape as it moves, all the way from the bottom of the tank to the surface, in completely still water. Similar solitons transporting emitted photons in GraSP platform are successfully demonstrated in this research work for augmented sensor performance.
• GraSP can now simplify the existing surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technology with enhanced performance

Key Features and Benefits

• Use of non-metal platform to avoid Ohmic loss
• GraSP improves the overall sensitivity and specificity by 3-4 times as compared to existing metal-dependent sensor techniques
• The extreme light entrapment and augmentation via hotspots from surface states and nanoscopic volumes aided in lowering the detection limit of the HuIFN-γ antigen to 1.95 pg mL−1, for superior performance in resource limited settings
• GraSP platform is useful in disease diagnostics in early stages of disease conditions and also help in the advancement of Point-of-Care (POC) devices

Impact

• A simple, user-friendly, cost-effective methodology is adopted to realize GraSP engineering with soliton-aided metal analogues and directional emission patterns on a conventional existing sensor technology based on plasmonic platform
• The subject platform is expected to find immediate deployment for real-time point-of-care medical diagnostics. It is strongly believed that this study presents a stepping stone to a plethora of exciting plasmonic architectures and disruptive diagnostics in near future.
• An industry or market seeking such devices with augmented sensitivity could take forward the proposed methodology for utility in early disease diagnostics, environmental safety and industrial applications
• GrasP is especially beneficial for low- and middle-income countries

Team

Seemesh Bhaskar, Naga Sai Visweswar Kambhampati, K. M. Ganesh, Mahesh Sharma P, Venkatesh Srinivasan, and Sai Sathish Ramamurthy. STAR Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Prasanthi Nilayam, Puttaparthi, Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh 515134, India.

Paper Published In: ACS Applied Matter Interfaces.

Read Paper Here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.1c01024