Supersensitive biosensor based on a photonic crystal nanostructure for blood sugar level monitoring with ultra-high quality factor and low detection limit

Abstract

Diabetes is the most prevalent disease in the world, which poses a serious threat to people's health. In many parts of the world, it is the main cause of death. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a quick and accurate blood sugar concentration detecting equipment because it serves as one of the most significant criteria for the diagnosis of diabetes. This study proposes a unique bio-photonic sensor for monitoring blood sugar levels that uses a one-dimensional binary photonic crystal made of Si/TiN layers. A central cavity layer is inserted between two equal periodic numbers. The sensing sample can be infiltrated in the cavity layer with various sugar concentrations. Based on the transfer matrix approach, the transmittance spectra properties are investigated. The impact of incidence angle (TE and TM polarization) and the sensing layer thickness are carefully investigated to achieve the best performance of the bio-photonic sensor. An ultra- high sensitivity of 4200 nm/RIU is realized for the proposed detector which is not realized for a lot of recently published articles in this field. Furthermore, the proposed sensor has inexpensive cost, tunable design, real-accurate detection and simple structure which is supportive to the industrial design using low-cost product nanofabrication technique. Based on these advantages, the proposed biosensor candidate is a viable and useful tool for determining the blood sugar level, and it may also be used to other biological samples.