IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 18, NO.
17, SEPTEMBER 1, 2018
Photonic Crystal Fiber-Based Refractive Index
Sensor for Early Detection of Cancer
N. Ayyanar, G. Thavasi Raja , Member, IEEE, Mohit Sharma , Member, IEEE, and D. Sriram Kumar
Abstract— This paper proposes a novel cancer sensor based on
dual core photonic crystal fiber for the detection of cancer cells
in cervical, breast, and basal parts. The samples are taken in
fluid form and infiltrated into the farmed cavity using selective
infiltration method. Each fluid form has its own refractive index
values which give the various responses in the transmission and
loss spectrum. The spectral shift is obtained by inducing the
coupling mechanism between silica core and cancer cell core
for its launching input optical field which is investigated by
finite element method. The proposed structure is also optimized
with its structural dimensional property for enhancing the
sensitivity. The sensing performances for the cervical cancer
cell are obtained as high as 7916 nm/RIU for x-polarization
and 10 625 nm/RIU for y-polarization with the detection limit
of 0.024. The sensitivity to breast cancer cells for x- and
y-polarization is 5714.28 and 7857.14 nm/RIU, respectively, with
detection limit of 0.014. Similarly, the sensitivity to basal cells can
also reach 4500 nm/RIU for x-polarization and 6000 nm/RIU for
y-polarization. To the best of our knowledge, such sensitivities
are the highest reported thus so far.
Index Terms— Cancer cell cavity, coupling mechanism,
birefringence, peak wavelength, sensitivity.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HE photonic crystal fiber (PCF) has demonstrated its
great potential in the photonics sensing applications.
In general, PCFs are made up of silica with microscopic air
holes running along the fiber. Due to high design flexibility,
PCFs offer numerous advantages over conventional fibers,
such as endlessly single mode [1], large mode area [2], tunable
dispersion [3], high birefringence [4], tunable large optical
nonlinearity [5] and very low loss [6]. In addition, PCFs are
highly responsible for analyte materials and external forces
that govern the sensing property. It is used as sensing medium
for strain [7], hydrostatic pressure [8], temperature [9], mag-
netic field and vibration [10]. Apart from them, some chemical
and bio-sensor based on PCFs have also been developed for
the sensing salinity [11], pH [12], DNA [13], cholesterol [14]
and glucose [15]. Especially, PCFs have also been used for the
Manuscript received June 27, 2018; accepted July 2, 2018. Date of publica-
tion July 9, 2018; date of current version August 10, 2018. The work of
G. T. Raja was supported by SERB, India, through the Extra Mural
Research under Grant EMR/2016/006361. The associate editor coordinating
the review of this paper and approving it for publication was Dr. Daniele Tosi.
(Corresponding author: G. Thavasi Raja.)
N. Ayyanar, G. Thavasi Raja, and D. Sriram Kumar are with the Department
of Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, National Insti-
tute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620 015, India (e-mail: inrsri@gmail.com;
thavasi@nitt.edu; srk@nitt.edu).
M. Sharma is with the Department of Physics, Birla Institute of Technology,
Mesra, Ranchi 835215, India (e-mail: mohitsharmac@gmail.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2018.2854375
1558-1748 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
7093
detection, treatment and prevention of diseases and diagnosis
for better health in the biomedical applications. Nowadays,
cancer is one of the common diseases in the world, which has
become a serious problem in human health. It is also a kind of
virus called as oncovirus. The smaller in size of the virus and
its divergence around the region of cell decide the impact of
cancer presence. Increasing rate of cancer urgently demands
the next generation of cancer testing equipment to sense the
cancer cells as early as possible. In 1962, Clark, Jr., [16]
demonstrated the first biosensor for the detection of glucose
concentration in the blood. Various detection techniques like
electrochemical methods [17], immunocytochemistry [18] and
microfluidic devices [19] are reported for cancer cell detection.
Later, with the help of Raman spectroscopy [20], the detection
of breast cancer using spark fused taper for esophagus and the
molecular level cancerous cells early identification [21] have
been proposed and analyzed.
Further, the development of biosensor for different region
of human is studied. For example, basal cell carcinomas by
Yaroslavsky et al. [22], optical detection of specific protein
(Estrogen Receptor(ER)) [23] in breast cancer cells using
micro-structured fiber, detection of breast cancer using photo
thermal effect on Nano composite [24] and cancer pres-
ence in body fluids such as urine, serum, blood and tumor
cells [25], [26] were proposed. Recently, Sun et al. [27]
experimentally demonstrated the label-free detection of breast
cancer biomarkers (HER-2) using an in-line taper fiber optic
interferometer with sensitivity of 2333 nm/RIU with low
detection limit of 2 μg/ml. All the previous processes of cancer
cell detection from basal, breast are relatively complex in
implementing and processing level. In this paper, a dual core
PCF based biosensor is proposed for the enhanced detection
of cancer cells where the samples to be analyzed follows
the liquid biopsy principle by which bio fluidic is brought
into the cavity of the PCF. Recently, Bertucci et al. [28]
and Khetani et al. [29] have demonstrated the mechanism
of biofluidic detection using microstructure optical fiber. The
proposed method promises for betterment results with opti-
mized sensitivity for early detection of cancer. Since we have
been involved in treating the nanometer size of cancer samples
in the form blood or other fluid substance from the affected
region, we directly measures the refractive index of cancer
samples instead of virus treat in efficient way. Such that cancer
cell samples in fluid form for breast cancer, cervical cancer and
basal cancer are considered and infiltrated into the cancer cell
cavity of silica substrate. As the cavity is infiltrated by fluid,
the cell counting of each type of cancer cell is not required.
7094
Fig. 1. Cross-sectional view of the proposed cancer sensor.
The sensing performances is studied based on the cavity area,
the variation of transmission spectrum and also it shows that
the refractive index variation of each cancer cell and its index
difference of one cancer cell to others provides the better
shift and prolong in early detection of cancer biomarkers.
Similarly, the loss spectrum of the PCF structure not depends
upon the size of the cancer cell whereas it dealt with intensity
strength of optical source propagating along the fluid cancer
cell. It indirectly means the coupling efficiency between the
glass and bio fluid mode using phase matching condition at a
particular wavelength. The deviations of the optical properties
in the detection of cancer cells are discussed in detail. The
proposed optimized PCF structure yields highly sensitivity
along with high birefringence for the various cancer cells
detection.
The organization of the paper is as follows. In Section II,
the proposed PCF and necessary computational procedures
are described. In Section III, important results have been
discussed in detail and the proposed structure is optimized
by adjusting size of the big air holes in Section IV. Finally,
a brief conclusion has been added in Section V.
II. F IBER S TRUCTURE AND A NALYSIS
The cross-sectional view of the proposed cancer sensor
in Fig. 1 shows silica filled background with the triangular
lattice arrangement of three rings air holes at pitch con-
stant  = 2 μm. In order to design the dual core PCF,
the center air hole is omitted which act as a silica core
and another hollow cavity of diameter 0.6 μm is located
at left horizontal to the central with injecting samples to
be analyzed and further it is optimized up to 1.3 μm with
difference of 0.1 μm for observing the tolerance level of
sensing as well as to avoid the complexity presence during the
samples taken and the results has discussed at the optimization
section. In addition, two air holes in vertical direction from
the middle are slightly increased to induce the polarization
effect. Initially, the diameter of the big air holes d2 is fixed to
2.2 μm for the better confinement of optical energy. It is also
observed that the variation of big air holes affects sensitivity
which has been discussed in detail at optimization section.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 18, NO. 17, SEPTEMBER 1, 2018
TABLE I
R EFRACTIVE I NDEX FOR BASAL , B REAST AND C ERVICAL C ANCER
AND N ORMAL C ELLS
Remaining all the air holes d1 are fixed to 1.4 μm as illustrated
in Fig. 1.
The host material of the fiber is fused silica, whose refrac-
tive index at any wavelength can be calculated using Sellmier’s
equation [30],
3
Ai λ2
n2 − 1 = (1)
i=1
λ − λ2i
2
Where n is the refractive index at a given wave-
length λ (μm), and Ai and λi are fitting parameters. For
silica glass, A1 , A2 , and A3 are 0.6961663, 0.4079426, and
0.8974794, respectively and λ1 , λ2 , and λ3 are 0.0684043,
0.1162414, and 9.896161, respectively. The refractive index
of the different types of cancer cells in the part of breast,
cervical and basal cell varies from 1.3919 to 1.4009 and its
normal cell varies from 1.35 to 1.37 [31], [32]. The detailed
refractive index of the cancer cells is shown in Table.1.
In this work, the different types of cancer cell at different
region of body (breast, cervical and basal) cells are analyzed.
In general, the typical cancer cell size is varied depending
upon the types of cancer cell. For example, cervical cancer
cell 17.66 μm [33], Breast cancer cell 17.48 or 18.72 μm [33]
Basal cancer cell 30 μm [34]. Though the cancer cell size are
different with respect to the region of human body, the sensing
mechanism of cancer cell in the form liquid biopsy or infiltra-
tion blood fluid samples into the cavity requires the minimum
quantity. Even it has the range in nanometer scale while getting
into the cavity.
III. R ESULT AND A NALYSIS
To sense the cancer cells, firstly the analyte samples with the
various types of cancer cells are infiltrated into the selected
air cavity, which exhibits the loss spectrum and work as a
cancer cell mode. It could be experimentally done by capillary
force [38] and selective infiltration method [39]. The sensing
principle of this sensor follows the energy transfer and energy
coupling at a particular wavelength where the maximum
absorption is inferred. The perfectly matched layer (PML)
is considered to the outer circle of the PCF, which is used
to resist the reflection of stray energy and absorb the radiant
energy from the fiber axis.
AYYANAR et al.: PCF-BASED REFRACTIVE INDEX SENSOR FOR EARLY DETECTION OF CANCER 7095

Fig. 2. Electric field distributions of: (a) silica core mode for x-polariation,
(b) cancer cell mode for x-polarization, (c) coupling between cancer cell
core and silica core for x-polariation, (d) cancer cell mode for y-polariation,
(e) silica core mode for y-polarization, and (f) coupling between silica and
cancer cell core for y-polariation. The arrow represent direction of electric
field distribution.

The scattering boundary condition is set to outer circle of

the PML, which supports to reduce the reflected energy. The
corresponding electric field distributions of the fundamental
silica modes are shown in Fig. 2, (a) - (c) for x–polarization
and (d) – (f) for y-polarization. The coupling occurs between Fig. 3. Effective refractive index and loss spectra of the silica core mode,
the cancer cell mode and silica mode for x and y-polarization basal cancer cell mode and normal cell mode as a function of wavelength for
shown in Fig. 2(c) and Fig. 2(f), respectively and it confirms (a) x-polarization and (b) y-polarization.
the phase matching condition.
Finite element method is used to study the real part and
imaginary part of effective refractive index in dual core PCF
The maximum loss is studied at 0.91 μm and 1 μm for basal
by Comsol Multiphysics. Initially, we infiltrate the sample
cancer and normal basal cell respectively. Such that the peak
of basal cancer cell to the cancer cell cavity. In Fig. 3,
wavelength of both effective mode index coupling and loss
the effective refractive indices and loss spectrum of different
will be the same as it satisfies the phase matching condition.
modes for different basal cancer cells in x-polarization (a)
The same process would be followed for y-polarization as
and y-polarization (b) is shown. It is clear that refractive
shown in Fig. 3(b). The intersection points of basal cancer
indices of the cancer cell will influence silica core mode and
cell and normal basal mode with silica core mode give the
further impact is analyzed to understand the properties of mode
maximum loss 209.12 dB/m and 436.01 dB/m at 1.04 μm and
coupling. At shorter wavelength, the electric field distributions
1.16 μm respectively. It is needed to be noted that the loss for
both for silica and cancer cell analyte have been started.
y-polarization is greater than x-polarization, which thus gives
As wavelength increases, the energy transferring of silica
higher sensitivity for y-polarization.
mode and cancer cell is inferred. At the point of interaction
When the normal basal cell affects by basal cancer cell, the
between the two modes, the power is equally distributed both
absorption peak gets blue-shifts 90 nm from 1000 to
to modes where the maximum absorption has been shown
910 nm for x-polarization. Similarly, when normal basal cell
and its corresponding wavelength is known as peak or dip
changes into basal cancer cell, the loss gets blue-shifts 120 nm
wavelength. It is also noted that the values of effective mode
from 1160 to 1040 fory-polarization. Hence, the maximum
index at the interaction point must be equal.
wavelength shift is obtained for y-polarization. Similarly,
From Fig. 3(a), it can be observed that the effective mode
due to the cervical cancer cell, the peak wavelength blue-
coupling for x-polarization between the normal basal cell
shifts 130 nm from 0.95 μm to 0.82 μm for x-polarization
and silica mode happens at 1 μm whereas the coupling
and 170 nm from 1.09 μm to 0.92 μm for y-polarization
between the basal cancer cell and silica core mode happens
respectively, as shown in Fig. 4(a) and (b). At last, due to
at 0.91 μm. The corresponding maximum loss of basal can-
the breast cancer cell, the peak wavelength blue-shifts 80 nm
cer cell mode and normal basal cell mode is obtained as
from 0.78 μm to 0.86 μm for x-polarization and 110 nm
21.54 dB/m and 27.839 dB/m at 0.91 μm and 1 μm, which
from 0.88 μm to 0.99 μm for y-polarization respectively,
are calculated by the following equation [10],
as shown in Fig. 5(a) and (b). Finally, enough shifts of
2π the loss spectrums are obtained for free detection of cancer
α (x, y) = 8.686 × I m(n e f f ) × 106 (2)
λ cells.
7096 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 18, NO. 17, SEPTEMBER 1, 2018

Fig. 4. Effective refractive index and loss spectrum of the silica core mode, Fig. 5. Effective refractive index and loss spectrum of the silica core
cervical cancer cell mode and normal cervical cell mode as a function of mode, breast cancer cell mode and normal breast cell mode as a function
wavelength for (a) x-polarization and (b) y-polarization.
of wavelength for (a) x-polarization and (b) y-polarization.

The peak wavelengths of the loss spectrum at various

concentration levels of cancer cells for x and y-polarization
are further calculated and shown in Fig. 6. It demonstrates that
peak wavelength shifts linearly with increasing concentration
of cancer cells from 80 % (cancer cells) to 40-60% (normal
cells). It is because the loss spectrum of peak wavelength
moves towards longer wavelength with the decrease of cancer
cell concentration.
In general the sensitivity of the sensor can be measured
through the shift of peak wavelength for variation of refractive
index value. The sensitivity (S) can be defined as λ peak /n,
where λ peak is the peak wavelength and n is the index
difference. The calculated sensitivities of breast cancer cell are
7857.14 nm/RIU for y-polarization and 5714.28 nm/RIU for Fig. 6. Peak wavelength vs. different types of the cancer cell.
x-polarization. Similarly, the sensitivity of cervical cancer and
basal cancer cells for x- and y- polarization is also obtained
with its detection limit and listed in Table 2. index for y-polarization. In Fig. 7, it depicts the variation of
birefringence effect with function of wavelength at different d2
while filling the samples of cervical cancer cell.
IV. O PTIMIZATION To achieve the maximum shift of peak wavelength with
In order to achieve the maximum sensitivity, the optimiza- respect to the analytes, the d2 in the proposed cancer sen-
tion of the proposed structure is essential. Since, the variation sor is tend to the optimization process such that, big air
of d2 is considered from 1.8 μm to 2.4 μm as the maximum hole diameter d2 is adjusted by increasing and decreasing
with step of 0.2 μm and the birefringence effects are noted from its fixed values 2.2 μm. As illustrated in Fig.8 (a) for
for efficient detection of cancer cell. The modal
 birefringence
 x-polarization and Fig.8 (b) y-polarization, the loss spectra
can be obtained by using B = n = n x − n y , where and its wavelength shifts are calculated with the variation
n x is effective index for x-polarization and n y is effective of d2 . It is observed that the peak wavelength is shifted toward
AYYANAR et al.: PCF-BASED REFRACTIVE INDEX SENSOR FOR EARLY DETECTION OF CANCER 7097

TABLE II
VARIATION OF S ENSITIVITY FOR D IFFERENT C ANCER C ELLS W ITH
D ETECTION L IMIT BY P ROPOSED S TRUCTURE

Fig. 8. Variation of loss spectra and its resonance wavelength for various
diameter (d2 ) (1.8 to 2.4 μm).

Fig. 7. Variation of birefringence with varying d2 diameters with respect to

wavelength.

the longer wavelength with the increment of d2 , while the

confinement loss gradually increases and reach the highest
when d2 = 1.8 μm. The calculated peak wavelengths shift
100 nm, 130 nm, 180 nm and 230 nm for x-polarization
with decreasing diameter d2 of 2.4 μm, 2.2 μm, 2.0 μm
and 1.8 μm whereas, for y-polarization, the peak wavelength
shifts 140 nm, 190 nm, 250 nm, 300 nm with the same is
corresponding d2 . Further reduction of the big air hole below
1.8 μm, the optical mode is not able to be confined within the
core.
Furthermore, the consolidated variation of peak wavelength
and sensitivities are numerically calculated and plotted with
respect to the variation of diameter in Fig. 9. It reveals that
the both parameters gradually decrease by increasing d2 up to
2.4 μm from 1.8 μm.
Seen from Fig. 9, the maximum sensitivity for
x and y-polarization can be obtained as 9583.3 nm/RIU and
12500 nm/RIU with the detection limit of 0.024. Even though
d2 = 1.8 μm offering the better sensitivity, it diminishes
the birefringence effect. Hence, the diameter is fixed as
d2 = 2.2 μm itself resulting higher birefringence and high
sensitivity. Further optimization is started with increasing the
cavity diameter (d3 ) from its fixed size 0.6μm to 1.3 μm
by 0.1 μm resolution and the calculated sensitivity for
its corresponding wavelength shift is plotted in Fig. 10.
It shows that a linear relationship among the wavelength
Fig. 9. Variation of sensitivity and wavelength shift with varying d2 .
shift, sensitivity and cavity diameter variation. The maximum
wavelength shift and sensitivity is obtained as 255 nm and
10625 nm/R I U respectively keeping the diameter values of
d2 & d3 as 2.2μm & 1.3μm for y − polarization.
The optimized sensitivity also shows the better values than
the sensitivity of virus detection and cancer cell detection
found in recent articles. For example, Vollmer et al. [40]
was developed Coupling between the micro sphere cavity
to the tapered waveguide by WGM’s modes for INFA virus
sensor whereas in our the present work, the refractive index
variation of blood samples is analyzed as followed by [41]
and the same is infiltrated in the provided micro cavity of the
proposed structure with the betterment sensitivity of earlier
literatures [40]–[42].
7098
Fig. 10. Variation of sensitivity and wavelength shift with varying d3 .
V. C ONCLUSION
With the aim of achieving highly sensitive PCF based sensor
for cancer cell detection, three layered dual core PCF sensor
was proposed. It contains cancer cell cavity in the cladding
region, in which the sample of the cancer cell is infiltrated. The
optical power is transferred from the cancer cell cavity to the
silica core as it satisfies the phase matching condition. Depend-
ing on the sample, the change in refractive index leads to a
shift in the loss spectrum. The performance of the proposed
sensor is improved by optimization of structure which results
into high sensitivity and also gives better birefringence effect
in the order of magnitude 10−3 . The sensing performances for
the cervical cancer cell are obtained as high as 7916 nm/RIU
for x-and 10625 nm/RIU y- polarization with the detection
limit of 0.024. The sensitivity to breast cancer cells for
x and y-polarization is 5714.28 nm/RIU and 7857.14 nm/RIU
with detection limit of 0.014. Similarly, the sensitivity to
basal cells can also reach 4500 nm/RIU for x-polarization and
6000 nm/RIU for y-polarization.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank D. Vigneswaran for his
technical support.
R EFERENCES
[1] E. K. Akowuah, H. Ademgil, S. Haxha, and F. AbdelMalek, “An end-
lessly single-mode photonic crystal fiber with low chromatic dispersion,
and bend and rotational insensitivity,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 27, no. 17,
pp. 3940–3947, Sep. 1, 2009.
[2] G. T. Raja and S. K. Varshney, “Extremely large mode-area bent hybrid
leakage channel fibers for lasing applications,” IEEE J. Sel. Topics
Quantum Electron., vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 251–259, Sep. 2014.
[3] J.-M. Hsu, C.-W. Yao, and J.-Z. Chen, “Wavelength-tunable dispersion
compensating photonic crystal fibers suitable for conventional/coarse
wavelength division multiplexing systems,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 33,
no. 11, pp. 2240–2245, Jun. 1, 2015.
[4] M. Sharma, N. Borgohain, and S. Konar, “Index guiding photonic
crystal fibers with Large birefringence and walk-off,” J. Lightw. Technol.,
vol. 31, no. 21, pp. 3339–3344, Nov. 1, 2013.
[5] Y. Kwon, K. Park, S. Hong, and Y. Jeong, “Numerical study on the
supercontinuum generation in an active highly nonlinear photonic crystal
fiber with flattened all-normal dispersion,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron.,
vol. 53, no. 5, Oct. 2017, Art. no. 6100308.
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 18, NO. 17, SEPTEMBER 1, 2018
[6] T. D. Bradley et al., “Optical properties of low loss (70dB/km)
hypocycloid-core kagome hollow core photonic crystal fiber for Rb
and Cs based optical applications,” J. Lightw. Technol., vol. 31, no. 16,
pp. 2752–2755, Aug. 15, 2013.
[7] J. Villatoro, V. Finazzi, V. P. Minkovich, V. Pruneri, and G. Badenes,
“Temperature-insensitive photonic crystal fiber interferometer for
absolute strain sensing,” Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 91, no. 9, p. 091109,
Aug. 2007.
[8] N. Ayyanar, D. Vigneswaran, M. Sharma, M. Sumathi, M. S. M. Rajan,
and S. Konar, “Hydrostatic pressure sensor using high birefringence
photonic crystal fibers,” IEEE Sensors J., vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 650–656,
Feb. 2017.
[9] N. Nallusamy, R. V. J. Raja, and G. J. Raj, “Highly sensitive nonlinear
temperature sensor based on modulational instability technique in liquid
infiltrated photonic crystal fiber,” IEEE Sensors J., vol. 17, no. 12,
pp. 3720–3727, Jun. 2017.
[10] Y. Zhao, D. Wu, and R.-Q. Lv, “Magnetic field sensor based on photonic
crystal fiber taper coated with ferrofluid,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett.,
vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 26–29, Jan. 1, 2015.
[11] D. Vigneswaran, N. Ayyanar, M. Sharma, M. Sumathi, M. S. M. Rajan,
and K. Porsezian, “Salinity sensor using photonic crystal fiber,” Sens.
Actuators A, Phys., vol. 269, pp. 22–28, Jan. 2018.
[12] W. Li, H. Cheng, M. Xia, and K. Yang, “An experimental study of pH
optical sensor using a section of no-core fiber,” Sens. Actuators A, Phys.,
vol. 199, pp. 260–264, Sep. 2013.
[13] D. Sun, T. Guo, Y. Ran, Y. Huang, and B.-O. Guan, “In-situ DNA
hybridization detection with a reflective microfiber grating biosensor,”
Biosensors Bioelectron., vol. 61, pp. 541–546, Nov. 2014.
[14] S. Soylemez, Y. A. Udum, M. Kesik, C. G. Hızlıateş, Y. Ergun, and
L. Toppare, “Electrochemical and optical properties of a conducting
polymer and its use in a novel biosensor for the detection of cholesterol,”
Sens. Actuators B, Chem., vol. 212, pp. 425–433, Jun. 2015.
[15] B. Luo, Z. Yan, Z. Sun, J. Li, and L. Zhang, “Novel glucose sensor
based on enzyme-immobilized 81° tilted fiber grating,” Opt. Express,
vol. 22, no. 25, pp. 30571–30578, 2014.
[16] L. Clark, Jr., “Implantable gas-containing biosensor and method for mea-
suring an analyte such as glucose,” U.S. Patent 4 680 268, Jul. 14, 1987.
[17] T. Li, Q. Fan, T. Liu, X. Zhu, J. Zhao, and G. Li, “Detection of breast
cancer cells specially and accurately by an electrochemical method,”
Biosensors Bioelectron., vol. 25, no. 12, pp. 2686–2689, Aug. 2010.
[18] F.-R. Li, Q. Li, H.-X. Zhou, H. Qi, and C.-Y. Deng, “Detection of
circulating tumor cells in breast cancer with a refined immunomagnetic
nanoparticle enriched assay and nested-RT-PCR,” Nanomed., Nanotech-
nol., Biol. Med., vol. 9, no. 7, pp. 1106–1113, Oct. 2013.
[19] L. Hajba and A. Guttman, “Circulating tumor-cell detection and capture
using microfluidic devices,” TrAC Trends Anal. Chem., vol. 59, pp. 9–16,
Jul./Aug. 2014.
[20] S. Liu et al., “Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy measurement of
cancerous cells with optical fiber sensor,” Chin. Opt. Lett., vol. 12,
no. s1, p. S13001, 2014.
[21] U. Neugebauer, J. H. Clement, T. Bocklitz, C. Krafft, and J. Popp,
“Identification and differentiation of single cells from peripheral blood
by Raman spectroscopic imaging,” J. Biophoton., vol. 3, nos. 8–9,
pp. 579–587, 2010.
[22] A. N. Yaroslavsky et al., “High-contrast mapping of basal cell carcino-
mas,” Opt. Lett., vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 644–646, 2012.
[23] S. Padmanabhan, V. K. Shinoj, M. V. Matham, and P. Padmanabhan,
“Highly sensitive optical detection of specific protein in breast cancer
cells using microstructured fiber in extremely low sample volume,”
J. Biomed. Opt., vol. 15, no. 1, p. 017005, 2010.
[24] J. Zhou, Y. Zheng, J. Liu, X. Bing, J. Hua, and H. Zhang, “A paper-
based detection method of cancer cells using the photo-thermal
effect of nanocomposite,” J. Pharmaceutical Biomed. Anal., vol. 117,
pp. 333–337, Jan. 2016.
[25] B. Bohunicky and S. A. Mousa, “Biosensors: The new wave in cancer
diagnosis,” Nanotechnol., Sci. Appl., vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1–10, 2011.
[26] C. Ribaut et al., “Cancer biomarker sensing using packaged plasmonic
optical fiber gratings: Towards in vivo diagnosis,” Biosensors Bioelec-
tron., vol. 92, pp. 449–456, Jun. 2017.
[27] D. Sun, Y. Ran, and G. Wang, “Label-free detection of cancer biomarkers
using an in-line taper fiber-optic interferometer and a fiber Bragg
grating,” Sensors, vol. 17, no. 11, p. 2559, 2017.
[28] A. Bertucci et al., “Detection of unamplified genomic DNA by a PNA-
based microstructured optical fiber (MOF) Bragg-grating optofluidic
system,” Biosensors Bioelectron., vol. 63, pp. 248–254, Jan. 2015.
AYYANAR et al.: PCF-BASED REFRACTIVE INDEX SENSOR FOR EARLY DETECTION OF CANCER
[29] A. Khetani, A. Momenpour, E. I. Alarcon, and H. Anis, “Hollow
core photonic crystal fiber for monitoring leukemia cells using surface
enhanced Raman scattering (SERS),” Biomed. Opt. Express, vol. 6,
no. 11, pp. 4599–4609, 2015.
[30] I. H. Malitson, “Interspecimen comparison of the refractive index of
fused silica,” J. Opt. Soc. Amer., vol. 55, no. 10, pp. 1205–1209, 1965.
[31] C. Tsai and S. Huang. Water Distribution in Cancer and Normal Cells.
Accessed: 2012. [Online]. Available: http://laser.ee.ntu.edu.tw/
[32] X. J. Liang, A. Q. Liu, X. M. Zhang, P. H. Yap, T. C. Ayi, and
H. S. Yoon, “Determination of refractive index for single living cell using
integrated biochip,” in IEEE 13th Int. Conf. Solid-State Sens., Actuators
Microsyst. (TRANSDUCERS) Dig. Tech. Papers, vol. 2, Jun. 2005,
pp. 1712–1715.
[33] L. B. Naves, C. Dhand, J. R. Venugopal, L. Rajamani, S. Ramakrishna,
and L. Almeida, “Nanotechnology for the treatment of melanoma skin
cancer,” Progr. Biomater., vol. 6, nos. 1–2, pp. 13–26, May 2017.
[34] S. W. Son et al., “Ex vivo imaging of basal cell carcinoma using syn-
chrotron phase-contrast X-ray microscopy,” Skin Res. Technol., vol. 14,
no. 1, pp. 13–17, 2008.
[35] P. Sharan, S. M. Bharadwaj, F. D. Gudagunti, and P. Deshmukh,
“Design and modelling of photonic sensor for cancer cell detection,”
in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. IMpact E-Technol. US (IMPETUS), Jan. 2014,
pp. 20–24.
[36] L. Zaobao. Accessed: Jan. 27, 2005. [Online]. Available:
http://nocweba.ntu.edu.sg/laq_mems/media/YIA_Zaobao.pdf
[37] E. A. Thomson, MIT Tech Talk. MIT Radar Research Used to Treat
Breast Cancer Enters Phase II Trials. Accessed: Jan. 10, 2001. [Online].
Available: http://news.mit.edu/2001/fenn-0110
[38] L. Kieu, L. Schneebeli, R. A. Norwood, and N. Peyghambarian,
“Integrated liquid-core optical fibers for ultra-efficient nonlinear liquid
photonics,” Opt. Express, vol. 20, no. 7, pp. 8148–8154, 2012.
[39] Y. Wang, C. R. Liao, and D. N. Wang, “Femtosecond laser-assisted
selective infiltration of microstructured optical fibers,” Opt. Exp., vol. 18,
no. 17, pp. 18056–18060, Aug. 2010.
[40] F. Vollmer, S. Arnold, and D. Keng, “Single virus detection from the
reactive shift of a whispering-gallery mode,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA,
vol. 105, no. 52, pp. 20701–20704, Dec. 2008.
[41] S. Jindal, S. Sobti, M. Kumar, S. Sharma, and M. K. Pal, “Nanocavity-
coupled photonic crystal waveguide as highly sensitive platform for
cancer detection,” IEEE Sensors J., vol. 16, no. 10, pp. 3705–3710,
May 2016.
[42] H. S. Dutta and S. Pal, “Design of a highly sensitive photonic crystal
waveguide platform for refractive index based biosensing,” Opt. Quan-
tum Electron., vol. 45, no. 9, pp. 907–917, Sep. 2013.
N. Ayyanar received the B.E. degree in electron-
ics and communication from the Narasu’s Sarathy
Institute of Technology, Salem, India, in 2013, and
the M.E. degree in optical communication from the
Alagappa Chettiar College of Engineering and Tech-
nology, Karaikudi, India, in 2015. He is currently a
Junior Research Fellow with the National Institute of
Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India. He has published
6 papers in refereed international journals and over
21 papers in conferences. His research interests
include optical fiber sensor in PCF, few mode fibers,
and few mode amplifier system designs.
7099
G. Thavasi Raja received the B.E. degree in
electronics and communication engineering (ECE)
from Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, India,
in 2002, the M.E degree in communication systems
from the Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madu-
rai, India, in 2004, and the Ph.D. degree from the
Department of Electronics and Electrical Commu-
nication Engineering (E&ECE), Indian Institute of
Technology, Kharagpur, India, in 2016. In 2006, he
joined as an Assistant Professor the Department of
ECE, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirap-
palli, India. His research interests include fiber optics, fiber optic sensors,
fiber lasers, and communication systems. He is a member of the IEEE in the
Communications and Photonics Society, USA, SPIE, the Optical Society of
India, and the Optical Society of America.
Mohit Sharma (S’13–M’17) received the M.Sc.
degree in physics specialization in electronics
from Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar University, Agra,
India, and the Ph.D. degree from the Depart-
ment of Physics, Birla Institute of Technology at
Mesra, Ranchi, India. He has published several
research findings in reputed international journals
and in international conference proceedings. He has
involved in several projects with the Indian Institute
of Technology, Kharagpur, India, where he was
involved in developing electronic nose and vision
for aroma detection and in another project, he has contributed to developing
data acquisition system (software and hardware) for geotechnical instruments.
His research interests include nonlinear optics, fiber optics, photonic crystal
fiber, supercontinuum generation, soliton generation, optical communication,
and fiber optic sensors. He received several national level scholarships such
as the Sahara India Scholarship in 2003 and the Indian Railway Academic
Scholarship in 2002, 2004, 2007, and 2009, respectively. He received the
Outstanding Reviewer Award 2018 from Results in Physics (Elsevier) and the
Outstanding Reviewer Award 2016 from the Journal of Optics and apprecia-
tion from several international journals. He joined several research societies
such as IEEE and the Plasma Science Society of India as a member, and OSA
and SPIE as a Student Member. He also served as a Reviewer for several
reputed international journals such as the IEEE J OURNAL OF L IGHTWAVE
T ECHNOLOGY, the IEEE J OURNAL OF Q UANTUM E LECTRONICS , the IEEE
S ENSORS L ETTERS , Applied Optics, the Journal of Physics D: Applied
Physics, Nanotechnology, the Journal of Optics, the Journal of Nanophotonics,
Optical and Quantum Electronics, Optical Engineering, Results in Physics,
and the Journal of Modern Optics.
D. Sriram Kumar received the B.E. degree in
electronics and communication engineering from
Madurai Kamaraj University, India, in 1991, and the
M.E. degree in microwave and optical engineering
from the Alagappa Chettiar College of Engineering
and Technology, Karaikudi, India, in 1994, and
the Ph.D. degree in electronics and communication
engineering from Bharathidasan University, India,
in 2009. He is currently an Associate Professor
with the Department of Electronics and Communica-
tion Engineering, National Institute of Technology,
Tiruchirappalli, India. He has contributed 46 papers in international journals
and 100 papers in international and national conferences. His current research
interests include microwave integrated circuits, optical and reconfigurable
antennas, carbon nanotube antennas, smart antennas, photonics, and FSO.