Enhancing the sensitivity of a fiber-optic biosensor for the detection of oral cancerous cell

• Main Authors: Datta, Arijit, Tripathi, Shiva, Chaturvedi, Mukta, Saha, Ardhendu
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biosensors; Cancer; Electron beams; Fiber optics; Gaussian beams (optics); Oral cancer; Reagents; Sensitivity enhancement
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0142296

Oral cancer is a major worldwide health concern that disproportionately affects both men and women in all parts of the globe. The high death rate in underdeveloped nations is primarily attributable to a lack of suitable medical infrastructure and resources to enable a structured screening and diagnosis process. Therefore, early detection of oral cancer is crucial for a patient’s survival. Unfortunately, existing screening procedures for oral premalignant and malignant lesions overlook a large percentage of individuals. Moreover, the current clinical approaches for detecting the oral cancerous cell are time-consuming and require the use of labeled reagents for laboratory analysis. Considering such context, this article describes a high-sensitive fiber-optic biosensor that detects oral malignant cells using a Vortex beam. Here, a claddingless multimode fiber with a Vortex beam shining on it serves as the sensing structure. It is based on the conception of multimodal interference in which the output optical power from the fiber end fluctuates due to the presence of various oral cancerous cell (YD-10B cell group) at the cladding medium. To anticipate accurate sensing, theoretical analysis was carried out for two kinds of living cells: the normal INOK cell and the malignant YD-10B cell. An Eigenmode expansion (EME) analysis in Lumerical Mode solver has been properly manipulated to simulate the sensing property of the device. By optimizing the sensing length for 5 cm, the suggested sensor responded with an admirable sensitivity of 644.9 dB/RIU, which unveils a 4.4-fold enhanced sensitivity than the existing Gaussian-beam shined sensor. Thus, the said sensing principle provides a label-free, easy-to-fabricate and straightforward technique to detect oral cancerous cells, which might be beneficial as a biosensor in biophotonics.