High-Performance Photonic Crystal Fiber Biosensor Based on Surface Plasmon Resonance for Early Cancer Detection

In order to detect the cancerization of the somatic cells early, a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) sensor with double gold nanowires based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is designed, whose air holes are arranged periodically and symmetrically, and two gold nanowires are embedded at the outer surface of the fiber as plasma material. The performance of the sensor is numerically investigated by the finite element method (FEM). The results reveal that the proposed sensor has a high response to six types of cancerous cell detection. The spectral sensitivity and the amplitude sensitivity of MCF-7 cell can reach up to 16,357 nm/RIU and − 1242 RIU−1, respectively. The maximum resolution of the sensor for MDA-MB-231 cell is 6.11 × 10−6 RIU. In addition, the maximum spectral sensitivity of the proposed sensor is 46,800 nm/RIU in the refractive index range of 1.34 to 1.41. The proposed sensor not only can detect six cancer cells but also has potential applications in biological analysis, medical diagnosis, environmental monitoring, etc.