Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is a sensitive, rapid, simple and low cost method for detection of biological molecules. In this study, SPR technology with alkaline phosphatase as a probe was utilized to measure DNA strand breaks induced by ⁶⁰Co gamma rays. The doses were from 0.01–10 Gy with a dose rate of 0.1 Gy/min. The results demonstrate that the SPR technology can be used to estimate strand breaks of calf thymus DNA. SPR signals of the calf thymus DNA samples increased with increasing gamma ray doses and the relationship of y = sqrt (3297x 582.6) (r = 0.99) between the SPR signal and gamma dose was obtained. Estimation of DNA strand breaks in irradiated lymphocytes by SPR also demonstrated an increase in SPR signal with increasing dose and the exponential relationship of y = 169.43 × (1 – exp^–0.89x) (r = 0.93) was obtained. The initial yield of the SPR signal is about 150.79 mdeg · Gy⁻¹ and compared to the sensitivity of 0.05 Gy achieved by the neutral single cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE), the SPR-based assay of DNA strand breaks was found to be more sensitive (0.02 Gy). We therefore propose that SPR technology with alkaline phosphatase as the probe is a sensitive, simple and quick method for detection of DNA strand breaks in gamma-irradiated lymphocytes.