RT Journal Article SR 00 ID 10.1364/OE.27.010098 A1 Otón Martínez, Eva A1 Otón Sánchez, José Manuel A1 Caño García, Manuel A1 Escolano Moyano, José Miguel A1 Quintana Arregui, Patxi Xabier A1 Geday, Morten Andreas T1 Rapid detection of pathogens using lyotropic liquid crystals JF Optics Express YR 2019 FD 2019 VO 27 IS 7 SP 10098 OP 10107 AB Lyotropic liquid crystals play an important role in many biological environments, such as micelles, liposomes, and phospholipid bilayers of cell membranes. In this work, we explore the performance of lyotropic liquid crystals as biosensors for macromolecules, proteins and whole microorganisms in hydrophilic media, i.e., the natural media where these specimens exist. The aim is to detect specific targets employing simple, unpowered sensors that can be used in the field, with minimum additional equipment. A number of different structures have been explored. The novelty in this work is the inclusion of a new optical effect, flow enhanced amplification, that allows for the semiquantitative detection of microscopic targets in lyotropic liquid crystal cells using the naked eye only. SN 1094-4087 LK http://oa.upm.es/54955/ UL https://www.osapublishing.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-27-7-10098&id=407704