Simulation and analysis of different approaches towards fiber optic plasmonic sensing for detection of human-liver tissues

Abstract

Three types of plasmonic sensors are applied for the detection of five types of human-liver tissues (normal N, metastatic MET, non-cancerous metastatic NMET, hepatocellular carcinoma HCC and non-cancerous hepatocellular carcinoma NHCC). The first type of the fiber with seven layers is made by a ZBLAN core surrounded by NaF, silicon, silver, graphene, Al2O3 and liver layers. The second type of the fiber with six layers is similar to the first one but without the graphene layer. The third type of the fiber with five layers is made by a SiO2 core surrounded by GaP, gold, Al2O3 and liver layers. For optimized thicknesses of the interior layers at a laser wavelength (1.53 μm) one obtains large values of the figure of merit and amplitude sensitivity at an angle very close to the resonance angle. The advantage of the third (second) type of the fiber for normal liver is a large figure of merit (maximum amplitude sensitivity) in comparison with that for the second (third) type of the sensor. For all variants of the sensors, the figure of merit and maximum of the amplitude sensitivity are decreasing in the same order (N, MET, NMET, NHCC and HCC) for the liver tissues.