Testosterone adsorption into the binding sites resulted in a change in Bragg diffraction of the polymer due to swelling or shrinking of the hydrogel film and refractive index changes, and therefore a clear optical signal can be detected. UV-Vis reflectance spectra of the films were recorded and their respective
λmax was correlated to solution concentration. The diffraction peak
λmax for the porous hydrogel is given by the Bragg equation:
where
d is the sphere diameter of the colloidal silica particle,
m is the order of Bragg diffraction, (
D/D0) is the degree of swelling of the gel (
D and
D0 denote the diameters of the gel in the equilibrium state at a certain condition and in the reference state, respectively),
na is the average refractive index of the porous gel at a particular condition, and
θ is the angle of incidence.
The reflectance of the films was measured over a wavelength range of 200–800 nm, using a double-beam UV–visible spectrophotometer (
Cary 60, Varian, Palo Alto, CA, USA) with a Harrick Scientific’s Specular Reflection Accessory (ERA-30G) at a fixed angle of 30°.
Kadhem A.J., Xiang S., Nagel S., Lin C.H, & Fidalgo de Cortalezzi M. (2018). Photonic Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Film for the Detection of Testosterone in Aqueous Samples. Polymers, 10(4), 349.