Hybrid interfacial cryosoret nano-engineering in photonic resonator interferometric scattering microscopy: Insights from nanoparticles and nano-assemblies

The requirements of augmented signal contrast provided by nanoparticle tags in biosensor microscopy-based point-of-care technologies for cancer and infectious disease diagnostics can be addressed through metallo-dielectric nanoarchitectures that enhance optical scattering and absorption to provide digital resolution detection of single tags with simple instrumentation. Photonic Resonator Interferometric Scattering Microscopy (PRISM) enables label-free visualization of nanometer-scale analytes such as extracellular vesicles and virions, and its applicability can be extended to biomolecular analyte counting through nanoparticle tags. Here, we present template-free, linker-less cryosoret nano-assemblies fabricated via adiabatic cooling (−196 °C) as plasmonic nano-antennas that provide high scattering contrast in PRISM. Plasmonic Ag and Au nanomaterials and their cryosorets are evaluated through imaging experiments and simulations based on the finite element method to understand the photo-plasmonic coupling effect at the surface of a photonic crystal (PC) interface. The Ag and Au cryosorets provide at most 8.29-fold and 6.77-fold higher signal contrast compared to their singlet counterpart. Through the simulations, the averaged field magnitude enhancements of 2.77-fold and 3.68-fold are observed for Ag and Au cryosorets when interfacing with PCs compared to bare glass substrates. The hybrid coupling between the localized Mie and delocalized Bragg plasmons of cryosorets and the underlying PC's guided mode resonance provides insights for developing nano-assembly-based nano-tags for biosensing applications.