Numerical Simulation of Early Detection of Cancer Cells Using a D-Shaped Fiber-Optic Biosensor Based on Surface Plasmon Resonance

Abstract

The phenomenon of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) has attracted a lot of attention in recent years due to its potential applications in various fields, including biology, chemistry, materials physics and sensing technologies. In particular, SPR is used in optical devices, sensors and optoelectronic devices because of its sensitive and selective sensing capabilities. In this paper, we have used a numerical approach based on the finite element method (FEM) to study the performance of a highly sensitive D-shaped optical fiber biosensor, exploiting SPR, for the early detection of cancer in individual living cells. The sensitive part of the proposed biosensor consists of a thin layer of gold (Au) covered by a layer of titanium dioxide TiO₂. Our numerical analysis aims to find the optimum design and handling parameters for detecting three types of cancer, namely breast cancer MDA-MB-231, MCF-7 and skin cancer (basal cells). To achieve this goal, we modeled the sensor’s sensitivity to the change in refractive index of the surrounding biological medium when introduced into healthy human cells and their cancerous counterparts. Our results show that the maximum sensitivity of the proposed sensor reaches the values of \(2017 nm.\,RIU^{ - 1}\), \(2016 nm.\,RIU^{ - 1}\) and \(1571 \,nm.\,RIU^{ - 1}\) respectively when used for the detection of MDA-MB-231, MCF-7 and Basal cell cancers. RI resolution is estimated at \(4,96.10^{ - 6} RIU\) for MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7, while for Basal cell it is estimated at \(6,37.10^{ - 6} RIU\).