MOMENTUM • VIRGINIA TECH MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 15
levitating force which causes the contents of the droplet to float toward the nanoantenna as the liquid evaporates . The bundle of sample particles shrinks toward the constrained center of the droplet base , resulting in a rapidly-produced package of analyte molecules .
For fast sensing and analysis of these molecules , a laser beam is directed onto the spot with the packed-in molecules to generate their vibrational fingerprint light signals , a description of the molecules expressed in waveforms . This method of laser-enabled feedback is called surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy .
All of this happens in just a few minutes , and the fingerprint spectrum and frequency of the coronavirus can be quickly picked out of a lineup of the returned data .
Professor Cheng and Zhou ’ s team is pursuing a patent on the method , and are also pursuing funding from the National Institutes for Health to deliver the method for widespread use .
A full summary and description of this research is available in the June 26 , 2020 , publication of ACS Nano .
Jiangtao Cheng ( left ) and Wei Zhou ( right ).