Revolutionizing optical biosensor with nanocomposite/defect/nanocomposite multilayer 1D photonic crystals

An optical biosensor designed using a Nanocomposite/Defect/Nanocomposite multilayer 1D photonic crystal is proposed for malaria diagnosis. The defect layer represents blood samples corresponding to various stages of malaria. Employing the Transmission Matrix Method (TMM), we analyse the impact of two kind of nanocomposite (NC) layers: silver-doped TiO₂ and silver-doped SiO₂. Comparative analyses involving varying thickness and fill factor of NC layers indicate increased sensitivity with higher fill factors and thickness, albeit with a decrease in transmission. Further, we explore the influence of incident angle (TM & TE mode) on sensing performance, revealing enhanced sensitivity at higher angles. The maximum sensitivity peaks are reported to be 1074 nm/RIU and 1064 nm/RIU for the mentioned NC layer cases. This biosensor promises enhanced sensitivity and potential for advanced malaria diagnostics.