Sensitivity Enhancement in Surface Plasmon Resonance Biochemical Sensor Based on Transition Metal Dichalcogenides/Graphene Heterostructure

In this work, a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor based on two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) is proposed to improve the biosensor’s sensitivity. In this sensor, different kinds of two-dimensional TMDCs are coated on both surfaces of metal film. By optimizing the structural parameters, the angular sensitivity can reach as high as 315.5 Deg/RIU with 7-layers WS₂ and 36 nm Al thin film, which is 3.3 times of the conventional structure based on single Al thin film. We also obtain maximum phase sensitivity (3.85 × 10⁶ Deg/RIU) with bilayer WS₂ and 35 nm Al thin film. The phase sensitivity can be further improved by employing Ag and removing air layer. The proposed configuration is of great potential for biochemical sensing.