Ultra-Sensitive Cholesterol Sensor Using Gold and Zinc-Oxide Nanoparticles Immobilized Core Mismatch MPM/SPS Probe

A newly developed localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) phenomenon-based cholesterol (Cho) sensor is reported in this article. Functional test of the proposed sensor over an ultra-wide-range of Cho concentration (0.1-10 mM) which covers the Cho concentration in human serum (similar to 5.17 mM), revealing great performance is executed. Further, different structures such as multimode-photosensitive-multimode (MPM) and single-photosensitive-single (SPS), also called core mismatch fiber structure are presented here for the effective detection of Cho. The proposed sensors are immobilized with different sizes of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) (similar to 10 nm and similar to 30 nm) followed by zinc oxide NPs (ZnO-NPs). The characterization and functional test of nanomaterials (NMs) and immobilized probes are observed using a UV-Vis spectrophotometer, HR-TEM, AFM, SEM, and EDS. A noticeable improvement is recorded in the all-important sensing parameters of proposed sensors, such as i) sensitivity (0.6898 nm/mM), ii) linearity (0.1-10 mM), iii) limit of detection (LoD) (0.6161 mM), and iv) correlation coefficient (0.9754) on the course of the immune binding of Cho to a specific cholesterol-oxidase (ChOx) functionalized probe, exhibiting great potential for future practical applications.