Nanocrystalline Diamond Films for Biosensor Applications

Diamond is a material with quite a number of excellent properties, like extreme hardness, high elastic modulus, high wear resistance, optical transparency in a broad spectral range, resistivity controllable by the level of dopants, etc. which make it a promising candidate for different sensor applications, e.g. for X-ray detection. Due to its outstanding electrochemical properties, superior chemical inertness and biocompatibility, artificially grown diamond has been recognised as an extremely attractive material for both (bio-)chemical sensing and as an interface to biological systems. This holds for all forms of diamond: monocrystalline (natural or artificial) and poly- (PCD), nano- (NCD) and ultrananocrystalline (UNCD) films. This paper is devoted to possible biosensor application of NCD and UNCD films. The first part will briefly introduce UNCD films (composed of diamond nanocrystallites of 3-5 nm diameter embedded in an amorphous carbon matrix with a grain boundary thickness of 1.0-1.5 nm), their deposition by microwave plasma chemical vapour deposition, their growth mechanisms and the characterization of their bulk properties, comparing them with other types of diamond films. The second part deals with surface modifications of UNCD films, which is the first step towards preparation of a biosensor, including different plasma and chemical processes, the thorough characterization of the resulting surfaces by a variety of techniques (AFM, XPS, ToF-SIMS, contact angle measurements, etc.) and the possibility to pattern the surface properties. The third part will describe possible pathways for the immobilization of biomolecules (proteins, DNA) on UNCD surfaces and the techniques for the characterization of this step, including force measurements, AFM and spectroscopic analyses. In the final part, different examples of biosensors based on UNCD as well as on NCD will be demonstrated in order to reveal the potential of diamond (films) in this field.