A performance comparison of heterostructure surface plasmon resonance biosensor for the diagnosis of novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

This paper presents a performance comparison of heterostructure surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensors for the application of Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis. The comparison is performed and compared with the existing literature based on the performance parameters in terms of several prisms such as BaF₂, BK₇, CaF₂, CsF, SF₆, and SiO₂, several adhesion layers such as TiO₂, Chromium, plasmonic metals such as Ag, Au, and two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides materials such as BP, Graphene, PtSe₂ MoS₂, MoSe₂, WS₂, WSe₂. To study the performance of the heterostructure SPR sensor, the transfer matrix method is applied, and to analyses, the electric field intensity near the graphene-sensing layer contact, the finite-difference time-domain approach is utilized. Numerical results show that the heterostructure comprised of CaF₂/TiO₂/Ag/BP/Graphene/Sensing-layer has the best sensitivity and detection accuracy. The proposed sensor has an angle shift sensitivity of 390°/refractive index unit (RIU). Furthermore, the sensor achieved a detection accuracy of 0.464, a quality factor of 92.86/RIU, a figure of merit of 87.95, and a combined sensitive factor of 85.28. Furthermore, varied concentrations (0-1000 nM) of biomolecule binding interactions between ligands and analytes have been observed for the prospects of diagnosis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Results demonstrate that the proposed sensor is well suited for real-time and label-free detection particularly SARS-CoV-2 virus detection.

Keywords: 2D materials; Biosensor; Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD); SARS-CoV-2 virus; Surface plasmon resonance; Transfer matrix method.

Fig. 1

Schematic diagram of the proposed six-layered (CaF₂/TiO₂/Ag/BP/Graphene/Sensing-layer) SPR sensor for diagnosis of biomolecules

Fig. 2

The proposed SPR sensor in FDTD solution

Fig. 3

a Angular Sensitivity and minimum reflectance (${\mathrm{R}}_{\min })$, b DA and FOM, c SPR characteristic curve, and d Overall performance of SPR sensor for BaF₂, BK₇, CaF₂, CsF, SF₆, and SiO₂ prism, considering at sensing layer refractive index, ${\mathrm{n}}_{\mathrm{s}}$ of 1.3348

Fig. 4

a Angular sensitivity and minimum reflectance (${\mathrm{R}}_{\min }$), b DA and FOM, c Reflectance intensity and incident angle, and d Overall performance of SPR sensor for different adhesion (second) layer, considering at sensing layer refractive index, $n_s$ of 1.3348

Fig. 5

a Angular sensitivity and minimum reflectance (${\mathrm{R}}_{\min }$), b DA and FOM, c Reflectance intensity and incident angle, and d Overall performance of SPR sensor for different plasmonic metal (third) layer, considering at sensing layer refractive index, $n_s$ of 1.3348

Fig. 6

a angular sensitivity and minimum reflectance (${\mathrm{R}}_{\min }$), b DA and FOM, c Reflectance intensity and incident angle, and d Overall performance of SPR sensor for different 2D (fourth) material, considering at sensing layer refractive index, ${\mathrm{n}}_{\mathrm{s}}$ of 1.3348

Fig. 7

a angular sensitivity and minimum reflectance (${\mathrm{R}}_{\min }$), b DA and FOM, c Reflectance intensity and incident angle, and d Overall performance of SPR sensor for different 2D TMDs (fifth) material, considering at sensing layer refractive index, $n_s$ of 1.3348

Fig. 8

a Sensitivity and ${\mathrm{R}}_{\min }$, and b DA and FOM respected to refractive index $({\mathrm{n}}_{\mathrm{s}})$ of the sensing layer, considering ${\mathrm{n}}_{\mathrm{s}}$ of $1.3348+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{n}$ (Here, $\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{n}=0.005$)

Fig. 9

Effect of each layer on the increment of the sensitivity structure: a CaF₂/Ag/Analyte, b CaF₂/TiO₂/Ag/Analyte, and c CaF₂/TiO₂/Ag /BP*3L/Analyte d CaF₂/TiO₂/Ag/BP*3L/Graphene*1L/Analyte for analyte change (1.3348–1.3398)

Fig. 10

Electric field intensity and two-dimensional plots of electric field distribution for heterostructure SPR sensor model of a Three layer—CaF₂/Ag/Analyte, b Four layer—CaF₂/TiO₂/Ag/Analyte, c Five layer—CaF₂/TiO₂/Ag/BP*3L/Analyte, and d Six layer—CaF₂/TiO₂/Ag/BP*3L/Graphene*1L/Analyte configuration

Fig. 11

Schematic diagram of a linear relationship between the different concentrations of target analytes and the sensing layer refractive index of the proposed sensor

Fig. 12

Schematic diagram of SPR curve characteristics of the proposed sensor for different concentrated (0–1000 nM) levels of biomolecules absorbing for diagnosis of target analytes