High-Sensitivity MXene-Functionalized Photonic Crystal Fiber Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensor with Dual Rectangular Grooves for Cancer Detection

Early detection of cancer remains a key challenge because current SPR-PCF sensors lack both sensitivity and robust light-analyte interaction. To overcome these limitations, this study proposed and validated an SPR biosensor utilizing MXene-functionalized PCF. By introducing a composite structure of MXene nanomaterials and Au, the detection performance of the sensor was significantly improved. The sensor adopts a circular air hole arrangement and double-groove morphology design and leverages MXene's high conductivity and gold's chemical stability to simultaneously enhance plasmonic coupling and biocompatibility. Through FEM-based structural optimization of the air hole diameter, Au layer thickness, and groove shape, the sensor exhibited outstanding refractive-index detection performance with a wavelength sensitivity of 11,072 nm/RIU, an impressive quality factor reaching 201.3 RIU^-1, and a resolution as fine as 9.03 × 10^-6 RIU. The simulation results demonstrated the capability of the sensor to discriminate six distinct cancer-cell types (cervical cancer HeLa, leukemia Jurkat, pheochromocytoma PC-12, triple-negative breast cancer MDA-MB-231, and breast cancer MCF-7) with high sensitivity and verify its ability to detect pan-cancer species. This study demonstrates an innovative approach for constructing a high-performance SPR sensing platform that has important application potential in the context of the early detection of multiple cancers.