Surface Plasmon Resonance-Based Fiber-Optic Metallic Multilayer Biosensors

Area of Science:

• Optoelectronics
• Biosensing Technology
• Materials Science

Background:

• Accurate detection of biomolecules is crucial for medical diagnostics and treatment.
• Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) biosensors offer a promising platform for label-free detection.
• Optimizing SPR sensor configurations is key to improving sensitivity and accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze and compare different multilayer metallic SPR biosensor configurations.
• To determine the optimal sensor design for enhanced sensitivity, accuracy, and figure of merit (FOM).
• To evaluate the performance of SPR sensors for detecting analytes within a specific refractive index range.

Main Methods:

• Utilized an N-layer matrix formalism for analyzing fixed-angle spectral SPR sensing.
• Investigated multilayer configurations using gold (Au), silver (Ag), aluminum (Al), and copper (Cu).
• Established stringent standards for sensitivity, detection accuracy, and FOM to evaluate sensor performance.

Main Results:

• Three- and four-layer configurations utilizing Al and Cu showed superior FOM.
• The highest FOM of 1433.82/RIU was achieved with a four-layer Al/Cu/Al/Cu sensor.
• The optimized sensors are suitable for analytes with a refractive index between 1.350 and 1.414.

Conclusions:

• Multilayer metallic SPR biosensors, particularly those with Al and Cu, offer significant potential for advanced diagnostics.
• The Al/Cu/Al/Cu configuration represents a highly effective design for sensitive biomolecule detection.
• This research provides valuable insights for developing next-generation SPR biosensing platforms.