Modeling of High-Performance SPR Refractive Index Sensor Employing Novel 2D Materials for Detection of Malaria Pathogens

The present work exhibits a novel design of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor, which comprises CaF2 prism, TiO2, metal (Ag/Au), PtSe2, 2D materials (graphene/transition metal dichalcogenides (MoS2/WS2)) and sensing medium, for point-of-care detection of various stages of malaria diseases. The transfer matrix method (TMM) is employed to examine the angular reflectivity of the proposed structure after judiciously optimizing the layer thicknesses and layer numbers. Phase interrogation technique is utilised to validate the position of occurrence of resonance angles. Additionally, the proposed SPR structure is designed using COMSOL Multiphysics, to assay the electric field intensity and electric field enhancement factor near the edge of 2D material-sensing layer interface. Simulation upshots revealed that the use of new class of 2D materials catapult the sensor performance to a new height compared to the traditional SPR configuration. A maximum sensitivity of 240.10 degrees/RIU, quality factor of 78.46 RIU-1 and detection accuracy of 1.99 is attained for Ag-based SPR configuration with bilayer of WS2. Sensing parameters are compared with previously reported works to prove the superiority of the present research. Moreover, the real-time and label-free detection of malaria diseases makes the suggested sensor worth to fabricate as a SPR chip with the recent nanofabrication technologies.