Date of Award

5-9-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Engineering, MSE

First Advisor

Ilwoo Seok

Committee Members

Brandon Kemp; Shivan Haran

Call Number

LD251.A566t 2018 W35

Abstract

Food fraud and adulteration issue is persistent everywhere in today’s world. Identification of the seafood and meat species correctly, swiftly and economically is a necessity to fight this issue. Every species has its unique DNA. Therefore, identification of DNA will lead to identification of species. Before identification, DNA must be amplified to facilitate analysis. The traditional methods for both amplification and identification of DNA require sophisticated laboratory, trained personnel, high cost and long time. In case of amplification, choosing Recombinase Polymerase Amplification (RPA) method over traditional barcoding method can reduce these problems. In case of identification, fabrication of a novel microfluidic device coupled with metal nanopatterned arrays can provide a field testing device reducing complexity, cost and time. The first step to fabricate such a device is to study the interaction of DNA with metal nano-patterned arrays. Keeping this goal in mind, in this thesis work, silver and gold nano-patterned arrays were fabricated using thermal dewetting method. Application of light in the visible range upon the nano-patterned arrays using a UV/VIS spectrometer generated electric field cloud around the nanoparticles due to surface plasmon resonance. DNA, placed upon the nano-patterned arrays, influenced the electric field around the nanoparticles due to the inherent electric field in its structure. The influence was observed and analyzed in terms of transmission spectrum of light. The second step to fabricate the device is to be able to distinguish between different sizes of amplified nucleotide sequence of DNA and hence different species. To do that, different amount of electric field around the nanoparticles need to be provided which require controlling nanoparticle size. A novel, economic and simple way to control this parameter by electrical excitation was investigated in this work.

Rights Management

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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