Numerical Study of Titanium Dioxide and MXene Nanomaterial-Based Surface Plasmon Resonance Biosensor for Virus...

A novel surface plasmon resonance-based biosensor for SARS-CoV-2 virus is proposed in this article. The biosensor is a Kretschmann configuration-based structure that consists of CaF₂ prism as base, at which silver (Ag), TiO₂, and MXene nanolayers are used to enhance the performance. Theoretically, the performance parameters have been investigated by means of Fresnel equations and transfer matrix method (TMM). The TiO₂ nanolayer not only prevents oxidation of Ag layer but also enhances the evanescent field in its vicinity. The sensor provides an ultrahigh angular sensitivity of 346°/RIU for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus. Some other performance parameters, including FWHM (full width at half maxima), detection accuracy (DA), limit of detection (LOD), and quality factor (QF) have also been calculated for proposed SPR biosensor with their optimized values 2.907°, 0.3439 deg^-1, 1.445 × 10^-5, and 118.99 RIU^-1, respectively. The obtained results designate that the proposed surface plasmon resonance (SPR) based biosensor has notably enhanced angular sensitivity as compared to previous results reported in the literatures till date. This work may facilitate a significant biological sample sensing device for fast and accurate diagnosis at early stage of SARS-CoV-2 virus.