Evaluation of Mesoporous TiO₂ Layers as Glucose Optical Sensors

Abstract

Porous materials are currently the basis of many optical sensors because of their ability to provide a higher interaction between the light and the analyte, directly within the optical structure. In this study, mesoporous TiO2 layers were fabricated using a bottom-up synthesis approach in order to develop optical sensing structures. In comparison with more typical top-down fabrication strategies where the bulk constitutive material is etched in order to obtain the required porous medium, the use of a bottom-up fabrication approach potentially allows increasing the interconnectivity of the pore network, hence improving the surface and depth homogeneity of the fabricated layer and reducing production costs by synthesizing the layers on a larger scale. The sensing performance of the fabricated mesoporous TiO2 layers was assessed by means of the measurement of several glucose dilutions in water, estimating a limit of detection even below 0.15 mg/mL (15 mg/dL). All of these advantages make this platform a very promising candidate for the development of low-cost and high-performance optical sensors.

Keywords

• optical sensor
• mesoporous layer
• bottom-up fabrication
• glucose sensing
• sol-gel
• TiO₂