Performance enhancement of graphene-coated surface plasmon resonance biosensor using tungsten disulfide

Abstract

An improved performance of graphene-coated surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor using tungsten disulfide (WS2) for sensing deoxyribonucleicacid (DNA) hybridization is investigated. This biosensor structure consisted of prism (SF10 glass), gold (Au), WS2, graphene, and sensing medium. Highly enhanced overall performances are achieved using a thin layer of WS2 between metal and graphene layer and are provided in terms of sensitivity, detection accuracy (DA), and quality factor (QF). Concurrent improvement of all performance parameters is depicted by adding a WS2 layer instead of another graphene layer with the existing graphene layer. This overcomes the limitation of graphene-only sensors where addition of a graphene layer increases the sensitivity but decreases the DA and QF. Analysis of Au thickness effect and limit of detection are also investigated. Numerical study demonstrates that the deviation of SPR angle for mismatched DNA strands is relatively insignificant while that for complementary DNA strands is noticeably reckonable. Thus, the proposed biosensor offers a window for detecting DNA hybridization.