Detection of COVID-19 Using Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensor for Sensitivity Enhancement: Theoretical Analysis

Abstract

This paper demonstrated a wavelength interrogation–based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor proposed for detecting coronavirus. The proposed design incorporates a BAF10 prism, silver (Ag), and black phosphorus (BP) to detect several ligand-analyte pairs associated with the virus. This biosensor is capable of efficiently detecting human monoclonal antibody immunoglobulin G (IgG), mutant viral single-stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA), and SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor-binding domain (RBD). The wavelength sensitivity (WS) and limit of detection (LoD) of the SPR sensor are calculated for each analyte in order to assess its performance. The sensor achieves a maximum WS of 5350.87 nm/RIU for RNA detection, 5333.33 nm/RIU for spike RBD glycoprotein detection, and 4700.85 nm/RIU for IgG quantification. These results are based on a finite element method (FEM) numerical analysis. Furthermore, the proposed sensor’s LoD is calculated as 1.86 × 10⁻⁶ RIU for RNA, 2.14 × 10⁻⁶ RIU for spike RBD glycoprotein, and 2.12 × 10⁻⁶ RIU for IgG. The penetration depth (PD) of the sensor is found to be 218.07 nm. These findings suggest that the proposed SPR sensor could be an effective and rapid tool for point-of-care testing for COVID-19.