Detection of Reproductive Hormones in Females by Using 1D Photonic Crystal-Based Simple Reconfigurable Biosensing Design

Abstract

In this manuscript, we have explored the photonic biosensing application of the 1D photonic crystal (PhC) (AB)NCDC(AB)N, which is capable of detecting reproductive progesterone and estradiol hormones of different concentration levels in blood samples of females. The proposed structure is composed of an air cavity surrounded by two buffer layers of material MgF2, which is sandwiched between two identical 1D sub PhCs (AB)N. Both sub PhCs are made up of alternate layers of materials, SiO2 and Si, of period 5. MATLAB software has been used to obtain transmission characteristics of the structure corresponding TE wave, only with the help of the transfer matrix method. The mainstay of this research is focused on the dependence of the intensity and position of the defect mode inside the photonic bandgap with respect to reproductive hormone concentrations in blood samples, change in the thickness of the cavity region and change in angle of incidence corresponding to TE wave only. The proposed design shows high sensitivity of 98.92 nm/nmol/L and 96.58 nm/nmol/L when the cavity of a thickness of 340 nm is loaded with progesterone and estradiol hormones of concentrations of 80 nmol/L and 11 nmol/L, respectively, at an incident angle of 20°. Apart from sensitivity, other parameters such as quality factor and figure of merit have also been computed to gain deep insight about the sensing capabilities of the proposed design. These findings may pave the path for the design and development of various sensing devices capable of detecting gynecological problems pertaining to reproductive hormones in females. Thus, the simple design and excellent performance makes our design most efficient and suitable for sensing applications in industrial and biomedical fields.