Label-Free Sensing of Binding to Microarrays Using Brewster Angle Straddle Interferometry

We report an interferometric method to detect chemical binding at an interface. The interference layer consists of the thin native oxide on silicon, and we utilize nearly opposite phase shifts of light at the oxide/water and oxide/silicon interfaces to achieve near-complete destructive interference. We measure selective binding of thrombin in solution to DNA aptamers covalently bound to the oxide. The technique can be used to detect and quantify surface binding of less than 1 A of material, sensitivity similar to that of surface plasmon resonance imaging or arrayed imaging reflectometry. Results are in quantitative agreement with what is predicted theoretically. The method is very convenient to implement since it utilizes unmodified silicon wafers as substrates and is extremely insensitive to both probe light bandwidth and collimation.