An H-Shaped Exposed Core Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensor and Detection of Cancer Cells

In this study, we present a novel design for a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) biosensor utilizing a quadruple silica channel configuration, specifically engineered for highly sensitive external sensing through surface plasmon resonance (SPR). In order to take advantage of the interaction between the surface plasmon polariton (SPP) and core-guided modes within the fiber, the silica channels are carefully positioned to generate an H-shaped PCF. The suggested sensor is designed and completely characterized by the finite element method-based COMSOL Multiphysics program, taking into account the refractive index (RI) variation in the analyte channels. A noticeably performance is achieved with a maximum wavelength sensitivity (WS) of 20,000 nm/RIU and amplitude sensitivity (AS) of \(-\)1367.62 \(RIU^{-1}\) in the wide RI range of 1.33 to 1.41. The proposed research aids in the early identification of certain cancer cells. Due to the variation in RI between cancer-affected and normal cell samples, the resonance wavelength of cancer-affected cell samples differs from their normal cell samples. The study demonstrates the sensor’s specific sensitivities, AS of \(-\)792.8853, \(-\)422.7596, and \(-\)985.2674 \(RIU^{-1}\) and WS of 5000, 4000, and 7857.14 nm/RIU for HeLa, Basal, and MDA-MB-231 cell lines, respectively. The proposed SPR sensor is a strong contender in a variety of refractive index detection applications due to its high sensing performance and fabrication viability that is evident in this study.