Liquid crystal-based capacitive, electro-optical and dielectric biosensors for protein quantitation

ABSTRACT

The electrical, electro-optical and dielectric properties of liquid crystals (LCs) are routinely manipulated in liquid-crystal display (LCD) devices, but their potential application in the development of biosensors is still in a nascent stage. In this review, utilising the electrical properties, electro-optical effect and dielectric anisotropy in LCs, we provide insights into several possible modes of label-free biodetection and describe how capacitance, electro-optical and dielectric measurements of various LCs assist in quantitative analysis of biomolecules. It is concluded that the electrically induced biosensing techniques proposed here provides new incentives for researchers to study the interaction between LCs and biomolecules and to resolve technical hurdles facing the development of LC-based biosensors.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Electro-optical measurement
• dielectric spectroscopy
• capacitance
• protein
• bovine serum albumin
• biosensing

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the contribution of Dr Po-Chang Wu, Chi-Hao Lin, Abhishek Karn and Ching-Min Lin of College of Photonics, National Chiao Tung University, Tainan, Taiwan, to the presented data reviewed in this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, under grant Nos. 107-2112-M-009-012-MY3 and 106-2314-B-309-001