Ultrasensitive surface plasmon resonance-based biosensor for efficient detection of SARS-CoV-2 Virus in the near-infrared region

This work offers an ultra-sensitive multilayered surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-based biosensor that uses angular interrogation in the near-infrared (NIR) region to detect the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). The multi-layered biosensor consists of the bimetallic layer (Aluminum (Al) & Gold(Au)), a dielectric layer (MgF ₂ ), and an optimized number of 2D nanomaterial (MoS ₂ ) layers. The proposed SPR sensor is engineered using the transfer matrix and finite element methods to achieve high sensitivity, the figure of merit (FOM), and detection accuracy. The selection of plasmonic metal and optimization for the different layers have been proved crucial to improving the performance parameter of the proposed sensor. The biosensor configuration (Glass prism/Al/Au/MgF ₂ /MoS ₂ /sensing sample) is observed to exhibit the highest sensitivity of 372°/RIU, FOM of 1690 RIU ^-1 , and detection accuracy of 4.54 degree ^-1 using the strong binding efficiency of the MoS ₂ layer and the high dielectric constant of the MgF ₂ layer. According to the investigation's findings, the proposed SPR-based biosensor exhibits excellent performance in the NIR region, demonstrating accurate real-time detection capabilities that will facilitate its use in field or clinical point-of-care testing applications.