Abstract
Evanescent field sensing methods are currently used to detect many different types of disease markers and biologically important chemicals such as the HER2 breast cancer receptor. Hinoue et al. used Total Internal Reflection Photoacoustic Spectroscopy (TIRPAS) as a method of using the evanescent field to detect an optically opaque dye at a sample interface. Although their methods were successful at detecting dyes, the results at that time did not show a very practical spectroscopic technique, which was due to the less than typical sensitivity of TIRPAS as a spectroscopy modality given the low power (≈ 1 to 2 W) lasers being used. Contrarily, we have used an Nd:YAG laser with a five nanosecond pulse that gives peak power of 1 MW coupled with the TIRPAS system to increase the sensitivity of this technique for biological material sensing. All efforts were focused on the eventual detection of the optically absorbing material, hemozoin, which is created as a byproduct of a malarial infection in blood. We used an optically analogous material, β-hematin, to determine the potential for detection in the TIRPAS system. In addition, four properties which control the sensitivity were investigated to increase understanding about the sensor's function as a biosensing method.