Patent ID: 8486866

Claim:
A device for quantitative measurement of biomolecular targets, comprising: a biochip having a matrix of probes hybridized by biomolecular targets, said matrix comprising a multitude of measurement points each comprising a plurality of said probes, a plasma generating and confining unit configured for focusing at least one laser beam onto the measurement points in order to extract therefrom a hot plasma containing a chemical element to be quantified that is present in said targets and, optionally, also in said probes, the unit comprising means for confining the hot plasma thus extracted which comprise at least one arrangement of n (n>1) plasma chamber(s) delimited by an enclosure surmounting the biochip and being open over the biochip, and a spectrography unit which is connected to said plasma generating and confining unit and which is suitable for detecting and analyzing emission lines from the hot plasma for each measurement point, in such a way that the concentration in each measurement point of said chemical element is determined on the basis of a correlation between the intensities of the lines specific to said chemical element to be quantified and given concentrations of this element.