Novel Wear Resistant and Thermally Insulative Materials

The Phase I effort successfully integrated micro-APD arrays into a detection system that can accommodate many microscale analysis platforms, including genomic-based systems on glass, silicon, plastic and PDMS (poly-dimethylsiloxane). We demonstrated thefeasibility of our detection platform by developing a highly sensitive, low-cost prototype system, which consisted of an LED excitation source, an optical fiber, two plastic colored filters, the PDMS-based microfluidics, and the micro-APD detector array.This system achieved a sensitivity that measured concentrations of dilute fluorecein solutions down to 1 micro-M, and easily detected 3 micro-m diameter fluorescent latex spheres, which mimic tagged bacteria.We will research methods for identifying biological agents using a microfabricated sensing platform, and we will develop a low-cost, low-power, portable prototype that is capable of detecting and identifying bacteria in volumes of 100 micro-L, or less.With the addition of a sample collection and preparation module, the target sensitivity of the proposed system will provide a minimum detection sensitivity of 20 colony forming units (cfu)/liter of air for bacteria. The targeted identification responsetime is less than 5 minutes. The proposed microscale analysis system is based on the integration of a highly sensitive, photon-counting detection platform utilizing micro-APD arrays.