Patent ID: 7169550

Claim:
A method of making a biosensor, comprising the steps of: forming a receptive material layer of biomolecules and a radiation-absorbing member generally uniformly over a surface of a substrate member in a light protected environment, the biomolecules being specific for an analyte of interest; placing a mask over the substrate member, the mask having a configuration so as to cover at least one underlying area of the substrate member while exposing at least one adjacent area; exposing the substrate member and mask combination with a radiation source sufficient to excite said radiation-absorbing member and, deactivate the biomolecules in the areas exposed by the mask; removing the mask from the substrate member; and wherein a resulting pattern of active and inactive areas of the receptive material are defined, the inactive areas corresponding to the areas exposed by the mask and the active areas corresponding to the areas underlying the mask such that when the biosensor is exposed to a medium containing the analyte of interest, the analyte binds to the receptive material in the active areas and subsequently facilitates diffraction of transmitted, reflected, or phase-shifted light in a diffraction pattern corresponding to the active areas.