A Highly Sensitive Slotted Photonic Crystal Fiber Biosensor with Gold and Tantalum Pentoxide Coating for Cancer Cell Detection

Our study presents a highly sensitive surface plasmon resonance based refractive index (RI) sensor for the identification of malignant cells. To make fabrication easier, this sensor just has six slotted air holes. In order to enable contact with target analytes, Tantalum Pentoxide (Ta2O5) functions as an intermediary layer between the plasmonic material Gold (Au) and the sensor layer. Using the full-vector finite element method (FEM), numerical studies are conducted to assess the PCF-SPR structure’s performance. The sensor reaches an excellent maximal wavelength sensitivity (WS) of 11,000 nm/RIU, an amplitude sensitivity (AS) of 325.34 RIU^-1, and a wavelength resolution (WR) of 9.09 × 10^_6 RIU by fine-tuning its structural characteristics. Additionally, a wide range of RI detection capabilities, from 1.30 to 1.44, are demonstrated by the suggested sensor. The suggested sensor obtains highest WS and AS of 10,000 nm/RIU and 637.21 RIU^-1, accordingly, for cervical (HeLa) cells in malignant cell detection situations. The suggested sensor is capable of detecting a wide range of chemicals, proteins, cancerous agents, biological molecules, and other compounds due to its exceptional AS and WS and wide detecting range.