A Fiber-Optic Plasmonic Biosensor with Dual Microfluidics to Detect Multiple Biothreat Agents
摘要
A microstructured optical fiber (MOF) sensor based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor is presented for the online monitoring of multiple biothreat agents. Featuring a compact design with few air holes, the sensor further incorporates two symmetric micro-grooves embedded with gold nanowires, which together form an efficient microfluidic channel to enable highly sensitive refractive index (RI) detection. The finite element method (FEM) based COMSOL Multiphysics software is employed to numerically simulate and analyze the sensing performance of the proposed sensor. The analysis reveals that the sensor supports simultaneous and precise detection of six common cancer cells and SARS-CoV-2, thereby enabling high-throughput multi-biological analysis. Within the RI range of 1.33–1.40, the sensor demonstrates maximum wavelength sensitivity (WS) and resolution (R) of 40,000 nm/RIU and 2.50 × 10− 6 RIU, respectively. In targeted cancer cell assays, it achieves a maximum WS of 36,429 nm/RIU with an R of 2.75 × 10− 6 RIU, along with a figure of merit (FOM) of 52.69 RIU− 1, a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 1.75, and a detection limit (DL) of 502.36. For virus detection, it attains a maximum WS of 13,158 nm/RIU with an R of 7.5 × 10− 6 RIU. Overall, by providing an efficient and reliable platform for early disease diagnosis and timely intervention, this MOF-SPR sensor is demonstrated to hold considerable promise for both scientific research and practical applications.