| AVS 63rd International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Applied Surface Science | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session AS-TuP |
| Session: | Applied Surface Science Division Poster Session |
| Presenter: | Swetha Barkam, University of Central Florida |
| Authors: | S. Barkam, University of Central Florida M. Peppler, University of Central Florida S. Das, University of Central Florida S. Saraf, University of Central Florida C. Li, University of Central Florida J. Thomas, University of Central Florida S. Seal, University of Central Florida |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Dopamine, is one of the main neurotransmitters which plays a significant role in the function of human metabolism, hormonal, cardiovascular and central nervous systems. Several diseases and neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and Huntington’s disease can be caused due to deficiency of dopamine. Therefore lower concentration detection of dopamine in biological samples such as sweat and/or urine containing dopamine metabolites is very crucial. In this study, we propose cerium oxide coated polymer nanopillars based sensor to achieve lower limit detection of dopamine with high sensitivity and selectivity for diagnostic applications. Cerium oxide nanoconstructs (nanoceria) that have the potential to act as antioxidant attributed to its switching of oxidation state from +3 to +4 mediated at the oxygen vacancies. The unique inter action between dopamine and the redox active nanoceria is studied using in-situ UV-visible spectro-electrochemistry and surface characterization methods. It has been previously observed that there is a strong attachment of dopamine to nanoceria surface through oxidation followed by formation of a charge transfer complex, there by motivating to develop a sensor to detect dopamine. In this study, cerium oxide is immobilized on high aspect ratio nano-pillars made of polyacrylonitrile polymer. The nanopillars fabricated using soft lithography increased the surface area of exposed cerium oxide, thereby increasing the interaction of the nanoparticles with dopamine. The changes in the redox potential and surface chemistry of cerium oxide coating upon reaction with dopamine were recorded using electrochemical and optical techniques. Cerium oxide coatings were obtained using different techniques such as sputter coating, atomic layer deposition, electrodeposition and spin coating to obtained different surface chemistry (ratio of Ce3+:Ce 4+ on the surface) to improve the detection limit of the dopamine.