Low-cost fibered fluorescence spectroscopic probe designed for biomolecular film characterization

We present a new combination of a fluorescent film deposited onto a chip and a new kind of low-cost optical fluorescence probe. The probe consists of an optical fiber which guides the excitation beam to the chip and a second one which collects the fluorescence light toward a spectrometer slotted into a PC. The resulting data are then processed to extract the pertinent information. This system is designed for the detection of DNA but, at present, we have achieved the detection of functionalized lipidic vesicles and studied the photobleaching process of such films.