Sensitivity-enhanced plasmonic sensor modified with ZIF-8

ZIF-8 is a typical metal–organic framework (MOF) material, which has great potential for sensor improvement. In this paper, we prepared a high sensitivity surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor based on ZIF-8/Au and described the preparation process of the sensor and characterized the samples in detail. The results showed that the synthesized ZIF-8 nanoparticles were uniform with an average diameter of about 50 nm. The performance of the sensor was related to the amount of ZIF-8, which could be controlled by adjusting the number of spin-coating cycles. When the refractive index ranged from 1.3335 to 1.3635, the maximum sensitivity of the sensor reached 3961.36nm/RIU with one cycle of spin-coating, which was 74.05% higher than that of pure Au single-layer film sensor. Furthermore, the feasibility of the proposed sensor for biological sensing was demonstrated by detecting bovine serum albumin (BSA). • A novel surface plasmon resonance sensor with a ZIF-8/Au structure was designed, exhibiting high sensitivity to changes in refractive index . • The proposed sensor combines high sensitivity and high FOM, achieving a sensitivity of 3961.36 nm/RIU, which is 74.05% better than the sensor without the coating, with a FOM of 44.85 RIU {}-1 . • The sensing experiment for bovine serum albumin demonstrated the potential of this sensor in biological sensing.