Specific detection of CA242 by antibody-modified chiral symmetric double “N” metasurface biosensor

Abstract

In this work, a biosensor based on Fano resonance metasurface is proposed for the specific detection of CA242 which is a typical marker of pancreatic cancer. The biosensor consists of a chiral symmetric plasma double “N” structure, which utilises coherent coupling of bright and dark modes to generate Fano resonance, achieving suppression of radiation loss, concentrating and storing energy more efficiently in the structure, and contributing to increased sensitivity to changes in ambient refractive index, resulting in a sensitivity of the sensor of up to 842.8 nm /RIU. After a series of antibody functionalization modifications, the metasurface has become an immune biosensor that can specifically detect the tumor marker CA242 of pancreatic cancer. The detection of mixed and single antigen solutions with different concentrations has verified the high sensitivity, high specificity, and high linear relationship of the biosensor to CA242, and the detection limit is as low as 0.0692 ng/mL. It is superior to other common methods and breaks the traditional disadvantages of lower detection accuracy and greater damage in tumour detection methods. The detection of the wavelength shift of localized surface plasmon resonance in plasma metasurface has been successfully applied to the highly sensitive detection of tumor markers. This study demonstrates the sensitivity and maneuverability of the chiral symmetric double “N” plasmonic metasurface biosensor, suggesting the potential application of metamaterials in biosensing based on environmental refractive index changes.