Highly sensitive MXene-immobilized long range SPR sensor for biomolecule detection

In this article, a long-range surface plasmon resonance (LRSPR) sensor is proposed using the dielectric (Teflon) -metal (Silver)-Ti3C2Tx (MXene) layer for imaging sensitivity enhancement. MXene shows excellent properties, such as larger surface area, hydrophilic nature, high metallic conductivity, chemical stability, and strong biocompatibility for detection of biomolecules. The MXene layer is used here to improve imaging sensitivity and prevent unwanted silver oxidation. The proposed sensor takes advantage of the high adsorption efficiency of MXene for biomolecules and high resolution due to the LRSPR technique. Long-range SPPs are used to improve the imaging sensitivity, detection accuracy (DA), figure of merit (FoM) and penetration depth (PD) up to 4998/ RIU, 12.5/degrees, 199.1/RIU and 546.65 nm, respectively, which are much higher than the present state of the art. The field intensity enhancement factor at the interface of the constituent layer of the proposed sensor and the conventional surface plasmon resonance (cSPR) sensor is also verified. The penetration depth (PD) of the field into the sensing layer for the LRSPR sensor is 2.5 times greater than that of the cSPR sensor. Thus, the proposed sensor offers potential benefits for sensing of large-sized biomolecules in the area of medical diagnostics.

Automated summary

This article proposes a long-range surface plasmon resonance (LRSPR) sensor using a dielectric-metal-Ti3C2Tx (MXene) layer to enhance imaging sensitivity. The sensor takes advantage of the high adsorption efficiency of MXene for biomolecules and achieves higher imaging sensitivity and detection accuracy through LRSPR technique.