High Sensitivity Intensity-Interrogated Bloch Surface Wave Biosensor With Graphene

Abstract

Bloch surface wave (BSW) is a surface state excited within the truncate defect layer at the surface of a dielectric 1-D photonic crystal (1DPC), which has been suggested as an attractive alternative to surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in chemical and biological sensors. In this paper, we propose an intensity-sensitive BSW sensor based on the truncate 1DPC with graphene. By optimizing the thickness of the defect layer and the layer number of graphene, the maximum intensity sensitivity of biosensor can surpass $3.5\times 10^{4}$ /RIU, which is greater than that for the conventional BSW or SPR sensors. With such excellent and interesting performance, we believe that the structure can be useful for many important applications in the field of chemical and biological sensors in the future.