A Novel BioNEMS Sensor Based on Tunable Plasmonic Modes of a Grating MIM Structure

In this paper, a novel optical BioNEMS (Bio Nano-Electro-Mechanical-Systems) sensor using a nanomechanical plasmonic structure is proposed to develop a high performance label-free biosensor. The present device is composed of a functionalized BioNEMS cantilever coated by a gold layer as a part of the proposed plasmonic grating waveguide. This plasmonic system is based on the light interaction with a metallic nanostructure as a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) Bragg grating where an air gap acts as the insulator. Passing patient samples through the functionalized surface of the nanocantilever, the biological interactions release a stress on the surface because of binding events. The cantilever can be thus deflected by inducing a differential surface stress. Therefore, the air gap distance (the insulator width) between two parts of the plasmonic grating structure is changed to excite surface plasmon polaritons in a different wavelength. Furthermore, the present biosensor is analyzed by numerical and analytical approaches and its functional characteristics are obtained as follows: optical sensitivity of 7872 nm/RIU, figure of merit (FOM) of 394 RIU⁻¹, mechanical sensitivity of 1.2 µm/Nm⁻¹. According to the results, the proposed label-free identification method can be used as a sensitive platform for detection of biomarkers in point of care testing (POCT) applications.