Patent ID: 7713751

Claim:
A method of optical detection of binding of at least one material component to a substance due to a biological, chemical or physical interaction, said method comprising the steps of: (a) providing a sensor layer formed by a solid or porous optical material, said sensor layer having two boundary surfaces; (b) immobilizing said substance on at least one of said boundary surfaces; (c) contacting a gaseous sample or liquid sample, which contains said material component, with the at least one of said boundary surfaces so that interaction between the material component and the substance takes place; (d) irradiating said sensor layer by a beam of polychromatic light from a light source, comprising a spectrum with a plurality of wavelengths, for which said optical material is at least partially transparent; (e) detecting intensity of light beams reflected from said boundary surfaces with said substance and said material component or light beams transmitted through said boundary surfaces with said substance and said material component by a detector; (f) placing a scanned interferometer with predetermined path difference of interfering beams of said interferometer on a pathway of the light from said source to said detector; (g) modulating the path difference of interfering beams of said scanned interferometer; (h) recording a distribution of the light intensity measured by said detector as a function of the path difference of interfering beams of said interferometer; (i) tracking a change of said distribution that is due to a change of optical thickness between said boundary surfaces with said substance because of binding with said material component; and (j) deriving from said change of said distribution the parameters of binding of said material component to said substance.