On the field enhancement and performance of an ultra-stable SPR biosensor based on graphene

Abstract

The effect of graphene on the electric field enhancement and performance of SPR-based sensor has been proposed and compared with Ag-Au bimetallic configuration. We found that a monolayer of graphene on Ag not only addresses the oxidation problem of Ag, but it also shows >30% field enhancement as compared with the widely reported Ag-Au bimetallic combination. Detailed calculations and simulations show that the proposed graphene-based sensor has >22% higher sensitivity and >38% narrower full-width at half-maximum than bimetallic. In addition, the better biomolecules adhesion due to graphene because of ?-stacking interaction may open a new window for ultra-stable high performance biosensors for real time bimolecular interactions. � 1989-2012 IEEE.