Design of high phase-sensitivity BlueP/TMDC heterostructure-based SPR biosensor using improved artificial bee colony algorithm

This paper uses an innovative improved artificial bee colony (IABC) algorithm to aid in the fabrication of a highly responsive phase-modulation surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor. In this biosensor’s sensing structure, a double-layer Ag–Au metal film is combined with a blue phosphorene/transition metal dichalcogenide (BlueP/TMDC) hybrid structure and graphene. In the optimization function of the IABC method, the reflectivity at resonance angle is incorporated as a constraint to achieve high phase sensitivity. The performance of the Ag–Au–BlueP/TMDC–graphene heterostructure as optimized by the IABC method is compared with that of a similar structure optimized using the traditional ABC algorithm. The results indicate that optimization using the IABC method gives significantly more phase sensitivity, together with lower reflectivity, than can be achieved with the traditional ABC method. The highest phase sensitivity of 3.662 × 106 °/RIU is achieved with a bilayer of BlueP/WS2 and three layers of graphene. Moreover, analysis of the electric field distribution demonstrates that the optimal arrangement can be utilized for enhanced detection of small biomolecules. Thus, given the exceptional sensitivity achieved, the proposed method based on the IABC algorithm has great promise for use in the design of high-performance SPR biosensors with a variety of multilayer structures.