Biophotonic sensor design for the detection of reproductive hormones in females by using a 1D defective annular photonic crystal

Abstract In this research work, we have proposed a one-dimensional (1D) defective annular photonic crystal (DAPC) ( AB ) 5 CDC ( AB ) 5 to identify the presence of reproductive progesterone and estradiol hormones in women. The periodicity of the proposed biosensing design made up of 1D annular photonic crystal (APC) has been broken by introducing a cylindrical cavity D of porous gallium nitride (GaN) material. The inner and outer faces of cylindrical cavity D are surrounded by concentric cylindrical buffer layers of magnesium fluoride (MgF 2 ) material. We have used a modified transfer matrix method with the help of MATLAB software to carry out investigations pertaining to the proposed theoretical work. The two distinct categories of blood samples containing reproductive hormones of different concentrations have been used in this work. The sensitivity of proposed 1D DAPC varies between 159.673 nm nmol −1 L −1 to 170.1525 nm nmol −1 L −1 when a cavity is infiltrated with a blood sample having progesterone hormone whose concentration varies between 0 and 200 nmol L −1 . Moreover, the sensitivity of the structure varies between 158.7816 nm nmol −1 L −1 to 170 nm nmol −1 L −1 under the influence of blood samples having estradiol hormones of different concentrations. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed biosensor in the true sense we have also computed quality factor ( Q ) and figure of merit ( FoM ) values of the biosensor corresponding to both categories of blood samples of different concentrations. Our study shows that biosensors made up of 1D annular photonic structures are more efficient in comparison to the biosensors made up of planar 1D photonic crystals. Apart from detecting the reproductive hormones in females such kind of APC-based specialized biosensing devices may be very useful in the field of medical engineering and technology.