Results in Physics 14 (2019) 102478

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Results in Physics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rinp

High-sensitivity ultra-quality factor and remarkable compact blood T

components biomedical sensor based on nanocavity coupled photonic
crystal
⁎
Nazmi A. Mohammeda, , Mahmoud M. Hameda,b, Ashraf A.M. Khalafb, Abdulaziz Alsayyaria,
S. El-Rabaiec
a
Photonic Research Lab, Electrical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Shaqra University, Dawadmi, Saudi Arabia
b
Faculty of Engineering, Minia University, P.O. Box 61111, Minia, Egypt
c
Dept. of Electronics and Communication Eng., Faculty of Electronic Eng., Menoufia University, Egypt

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In this work, a 2-D photonic crystal (PhC)-based refractive index biomedical sensor is designed, simulated and
Blood components evaluated. The proposed design successfully and accurately distinguishes between famous ten types of blood
Nanocavity coupled PhC components. The levels of sensitivity, quality factor, and compactness for the proposed design are remarkable
Double circular-holes compared to related literatures. A nanocavity PhC waveguide is equipped with a double circular-hole defect and
Sensitivity
a hexagonal lattice of silicon rods to validate the proposed sensor. Finite-difference time-domain and plane wave
Quality factor
expansion methods are used to analyze and simulate the proposed design. A comparison between the presented
Compactness
work and related literatures for blood component-based refractive index PhC sensors is made to ensure the
validity and effectiveness of the proposed design.

Introduction pressure [8,9], gas [9–11], biomedical [12–14], displacement [15,16],

The photonic crystal (PhC) is one of the most promising platforms
for optical information processing as it can enable compact and efficient
photonic devices and their large-scale integration on-chip [1,2]. All-
optical signal processing applications based on devices such as Semi-
conductor Optical Amplifier (SOA), Mach-Zehnder Interferometer
(MZI), nonlinear silicon waveguides and quantum dots suffer from
higher power consumption, large area occupation, and lower bit rate
when compared with PhC designs and structures [1]. There is a variety
of all-optical signal processing devices that utilize PhC as directional
resonator [3,4], channel drop filters [5], switches [5,6], optical mod-
ulators [6], oscillators [6] and sensors [5,7].
One of the most promising technologies in today’s sensing techni-
ques is PhC-based sensors. They enable superior levels of sensitivity
resulting in precise detection limits due to their well-defined physical
properties such as reflectance/transmittance [7]. The acceptable dis-
play quality in the visible range of wavelengths is extra merit due to
their sparkling visual quality [5]. High selectivity in sensing me-
chanism, high wavelength selectivity, and ultra-high light confinement
in very small volumes are additional advantages [7].
Famous types of sensors based on PhC are high temperature,
liquid [17,18] and force-strain sensors [19–21].
Manipulation of light at the nanoscale has the promise to enable
numerous technological advances in PhC biomedical sensing. Several
techniques are proposed to provide high sensitivity, quality factor, and
compactness. These parameters are considered as the main evaluating
parameters for any reliable biomedical sensor [6,22].
In the following, famous types of these techniques, such as PhC
optical waveguide (PCW), which suffer from difficulties in analyzing
and low sensitivity, will be highlighted. To overcome this issue, PhC
surfaces are used as optical reflectors [6,23,24]. Such process suffers
from the difficulty of being reused [25]. Hence, to solve this issue,
imaging techniques are integrated with the previous technique [25,26].
After that, PhC fiber is introduced and it has a design flexible with
lower size compared to previous techniques [27]. The Combination of
PCW and resonators is an alternative technique used to enhance sen-
sitivity and quality factor. However, it has a complicated structure
design [28]. Guided mode resonance (GMR) PhC structures show lim-
itations in detection with moderate levels of sensitivity [25]. Recently,
there are two types of PhC sensing techniques that are introduced and
they show promising sensing characteristics compared to all previous
techniques. They are microcavity and nanocavity [29–31].

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: nazzazzz@gmail.com (N.A. Mohammed).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rinp.2019.102478
Received 27 December 2018; Received in revised form 24 June 2019; Accepted 24 June 2019
Available online 28 June 2019
2211-3797/ © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
N.A. Mohammed, et al. Results in Physics 14 (2019) 102478

Table 1
Comparison between the literatures and the presented work to detect different types of blood components.
Ref Year Types of blood components Sensitivity (nm/ Quality Factor (unit transmission spectra Techniques Size (µm2)
studied RIU) less)

[32] 2014 Water NA1 NA1 √ PhC waveguide with line defect NA1
Cytop NA1 NA1 √
Blood plasma NA1 NA1 √
White blood component NA1 NA1 √
Hemoglobin NA1 NA1 √
Red blood component NA1 NA1 √
Sylgard184 NA1 NA1 √
Biotin-streptavidin NA1 NA1 √
Polyacrylamide NA1 NA1 √
Bovine serum albumin NA1 NA1 √
Urethane dimethacrylate NA1 NA1 √
[33] 2015 Cytop NA1 74.543 √ PhC with ring resonator 170 × 174
Blood plasma NA1 129.063 √
Ethanol NA1 1966.192 √
Hemoglobin NA1 162.271 √
Glucose solution (40gm/100 ml) NA1 82.172 √
Sylgard184 NA1 1353.953 √
Biotin-streptavidin NA1 134.067 √
Polyacrylamide NA1 117.832 √
Bovine serum albumin NA1 134.763 √
[22] 2016 Water Ref 1110.48 √ PhC with ring resonator NA1
Blood plasma 5.3265 1084.16 √
White blood component 5.28886 1078.47 √
Hemoglobin 5.304 1076.65 √
Red blood component 5.699 1069.22 √
Biotin-streptavidin 5.95 1040.37 √
[34] 2017 Water 55.09021 NA1 NA1 Nanocavity with single hole NA1
Blood plasma 54.04791 NA1 NA1 defect
White blood component 53.72134 NA1 NA1
Hemoglobin 66.46978 NA1 NA1
Red blood component 56.05429 NA1 NA1
[35] 2017 10% of glucose concentration 0 NA1 NA1 PhC fiber NA1
20% of glucose concentration 19120.45 NA1 NA1
30% of glucose concentration 20,000 NA1 NA1
40% of glucose concentration 19,500 NA1 NA1
50% of glucose concentration 19,000 NA1 NA1
60% of glucose concentration 17,500 NA1 NA1
[36] 2018 Water NA1 178 √ PhC with elliptical ring resonator 11.4 × 9.2
Cytop NA1 267 √
Blood plasma NA1 160 √
White blood component NA1 266 √
Hemoglobin NA1 265 √
Red blood component NA1 227 √
Sylgard184 NA1 264 √
Biotin-streptavidin NA1 263 √
Polyacrylamide NA1 263 √
Bovine serum albumin NA1 262 √
Urethane dimethacrylate NA1 262 √
In this work 2019 Water 473.38 6715.611 √ Nanocavity with double hole 9.4 × 5.5
Cytop 460.03 6085.26 √ defects
Blood plasma 449.62 7257.46 √
White blood component 439.85 6674.06 √
Hemoglobin 419.48 7324.19 √
Red blood component 403.38 6041.03 √
Sylgard184 379.99 6843.59 √
Biotin-streptavidin 365.44 5692.03 √
Polyacrylamide 364.00 3373.20 √
Bovine serum albumin 354.00 4414.96 √
Urethane dimethacrylate 347.99 4417.38 √

1
NA is Not Available.

Famous applications of PhC-based biomedical sensing are: mea-
surement of blood components in an effective way [22,32–36], ex-
posure of specific DNA [37], detection of glucose concentration in urine
[38] and detection of different types of cancer cells [22].
Among previous sensors, PhC-based blood component sensors and
detectors have attracted great attention [22,32–36]. Blood analysis
plays an important role in evaluating how well organs such as the
kidneys, liver, thyroid, and heart are functioning. Also, they effectively
diagnose diseases such as cancer, diabetes and coronary heart [39].
Human blood contains several hundred different proteins that can give
a picture of a person’s general health and his vital levels [40].
Famous blood components are: 1- cytop, 2- blood plasma, 3- white
blood component, 4- hemoglobin, 5- red blood component, 6- syl-
gard184, 7- biotin-streptavidin, 8- polyacrylamide, 9- bovine serum
albumin and 10- urethane dimethacrylate [22,32–34,36]. High-sensing
characteristics are targeted for these components through this work.
The human body fights bacteria and viruses by the aid of white
blood cells. White blood cells help to protect the human body against
infections and diseases. The normal number of white blood cells in the
blood is 4500–11,000 WBC per microliter [41–43]. Another type is red

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N.A. Mohammed, et al. Results in Physics 14 (2019) 102478

Nanocavity double holes (point defect)

(a)
Air

Si rods

Input Output

(b)
Resonance curve of quality factor

Fig. 1. (a) View of the dielectric profile of nanocavity double holes coupled waveguide structure. (b) Transmission spectra of Photonic crystal waveguide and cavity
coupled waveguide.

One of its vital functions is that it is responsible for transporting oxygen

Fig. 2. Sensor lattice structure at optimum radius and shift required to achieve
only ultra-compact and sensing ten types of blood components (i.e. result of
first design stage).
blood cells. They are responsible for the supply of oxygen to human
tissues. Anemia is caused by a shortage in the number of red blood cell
count and impairment of the amount of oxygen transferred to the
body’s tissues [44]. The protein in red blood cells is called hemoglobin.
from the lungs to the rest of the body. After the oxygen is used, he-
moglobin carries the released carbon dioxide back to the lungs, where it
is exhaled [45]. Plasma is another key blood component. It is re-
sponsible for transporting nutrients, hormones, and proteins to the
parts of the body that need it. In addition to transporting nutrients, the
plasma transports waste products, such as ammonium salts, uric acid,
and creatinine, from the cells of the body to the kidneys. The kidneys
filter these wastes out of the plasma and excrete them from the body as
urine [46,47]. Previous information is highlights of the most important
blood components. More biomedical data about blood components can
be found in [48–53]
Few literatures designed, simulated and evaluated blood compo-
nent-based refractive index PhC sensors [22,32–36]. Reviewing and
comparing them with this work will be made in table 1.
As an example, Ref. [22] is a nominated work. It has an advantage
of multi-sensing behavior. However, from a blood components point of
view, not all of them are investigated, namely Cytop, bovine serum
albumin, urethane dimethacrylate, Sylgard184, and polyacrylamide.
Also, the levels of sensitivity, quality factor and compactness are far
away from future trends of ultra-sensitive PhC-based biomedical sen-
sors. One should indicate that this work achieves simultaneously the
following: (1) extremely high sensitivity (2) ultra-quality factor (3)
remarkable compactness (4) detection of ten blood components si-
multaneously. This is considered a future trend to blood component-
based refractive index PhC sensors. Several literatures have in-
vestigated the sensor based on the refractive index in terms of sensi-
tivity, quality factor, and compactness.
From the fabrication and real-time implementation especially for

3
N.A. Mohammed, et al. Results in Physics 14 (2019) 102478

Fig. 3. Normalized transmission spectra of the first design stage at optimum radius and shift required to achieve only ultra-compact and sensing ten types of blood
components.

Table 2 explored. Ten types containing famous blood components are included
The resonant wavelength, sensitivity and quality factor of blood components for in this work. This work introduces a design of nanocavity PhC wave-
the first design stage. guide with a double circular-hole defect and a hexagonal lattice of si-
Types of blood Resonant Sensitivity Quality Size (µm2) licon rods to verify the targeted sensor. Although the proposed design is
components studied wavelength (nm/RIU) factor more difficult to fabricate, it is extremely sensitive with high-quality
(µm) (unit less) factors and ultra-compactness. From the author’s point of view, this
technology can be considered the base for future high-performance
Water 1.68915 97.42 889.03 9.4 × 5.5
Cytop 1.68975 96.32 1126.50
biomedical sensors. A comparison will be made at the end of this work
Blood plasma 1.6913 98 1409.42 to prove the effectiveness of the introduced design.
White blood 1.6924 98.33 1057.75 The rest of this work is organized as follows: Section 2 provides the
component proposed design. The results and the discussion are presented in Section
Hemoglobin 1.69435 98.28 891.76
3. Finally, the conclusion is presented in Section 4.
Red blood component 1.69665 99.12 1131.10
Sylgard184 1.69965 99.18 894.55
Biotin-streptavidin 1.70215 100.33 895.87
Polyacrylamide 1.7022 100 851.10 Proposed design
Bovine serum albumin 1.70405 100.10 811.45
Urethane 1.7051 100 852.55
The proposed design is performed and simulated by using the FDTD
dimethacrylate
method. It is used for the numerical simulations to solve the Maxwell
equations that govern such photonic crystal structures [3,61]. The PWE
PhC-based sensing applications, a great match is observed between the method [62,63] has been applied to calculate the forbidden regions for
designed/simulated sensor’s results and fabrication measurements light propagation, known as photonic band gaps (PBGs). It is worth
[54–56]. This match is increased when the finite- difference time-do- mentioning that these simulation and analyzing methods are well-
main (FDTD) and plane-wave expansion (PWE) design/simulation known for their several merits, including that they provide a great
methods are used [57–60]. Since the proposed work is closely related to match between design/simulation and fabricated results [64,65].
these PhC-based sensing applications in fabrication technology and It is worth mentioning that the proposed design uses the double-
design/simulation method, one can predict that the proposed design hole cavity technique that has high sensitivity, quality factor, and
can be fabricated and provide an acceptable match between the pro- compactness compared to single-hole cavity. These merits may be on
posed design and real-life sensing results. the price of complexity [66]. This is the main reason for utilizing such a
In this work, the remarkable performance of blood component technique through this work.
sensor based on PhC reflective index measurement is presented and Fig. 1(a) represents the proposed design of biomedical blood com-
ponent sensor based on PhC. The design utilizes a 2D hexagonal lattice

Fig. 4. Sensor lattice structure for final design stage.

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N.A. Mohammed, et al. Results in Physics 14 (2019) 102478

Fig. 5. Sensor lattice structure for final design stage at the optimized parameters that provide ultra-quality factor extracted from step number 13 Table 3 in the base
analyte (i.e. water) condition.

Table 3
The optimization process for the radius and shift of Si rods A, B, C, D, E and F with corresponding resonant wavelength, sensitivity and quality factor for the final
design stage at base analyte (i.e. water) condition.
Step A-R (x a) B-R (x a) C-R (x a) C-S B-S D-R (x a) E-R (x a) F-R (x a) F-S Resonant wavelength Sensitivity (nm/ Quality factor (unit
number (µm) RIU) less)

1 0.355 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.74155 256.21 645.01

2 0.36 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.7477 274.84 794.40
3 0.36 0.285 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.7491 279.09 583.03
4 0.36 0.285 0.275 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.74875 278.03 647.68
5 0.36 0.285 0.28 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.7488 278.18 672.61
6 0.36 0.285 0.285 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.74885 278.33 647.72
7 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.45 0 0 0 0 0 1.75505 297.12 923.71
8 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.5 0 0 0 0 0 1.75545 298.33 1170.3
9 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.5 0.95 0 0 0 0 1.7722 349.09 8861
10 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.5 1 0 0 0 0 1.7765 362.12 1776.5
11 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.5 1 0.33 0 0 0 1.78285 381.36 5942.83
12 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.5 1 0.335 0 0 0 1.7847 386.96 8923.5
13 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.5 1 0.34 0 0 0 1.79059 404.81 10231.94
14 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.5 1 0.34 0.315 0 0 1.7881 397.27 1788.1
15 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.5 1 0.34 0.32 0 0 1.7887 399.09 8943.5
16 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.5 1 0.34 0.32 0.32 0 1.79255 410.75 1792.5
17 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.5 1 0.34 0.32 0.32 −1.08 1.813215 473.37 6715.61
18 0.36 0.285 0.28 2.5 1 0.34 0.32 0.32 −1.085 1.81335 473.78 6044.5

Abbreviation for the header contents of the table

▪ R (radius) µm
▪ S (shift) µm
▪ a (Lattice constant) µm
▪ A,B,C,D,E and F name of the rods
▪ A-R is the radius of rod A
▪ B-R is the radius of rod B
▪ C-R is the radius of rod C
▪ D-R is the radius of rod D
▪ E-R is the radius of rod E
▪ F-R is the radius of rod F
▪ C-S is the shift of rod C with respect to the origin of lattice
▪ B-S is the shift of rod B with respect to the origin of lattice
▪ F-S is the shift of rod F with respect to the origin of lattice.

of silicon rods that have refractive index = 3.42 with air background
that has refractive index = 1. Lattice constant “a” is the distance be-
tween the center of two rods and set to be 0.8 μm and the radius of
silicon rods is r = 0.240 μm. Slab dimensions are 9.4 × 5.5 μm2. The
input signal wavelength is 1550 nm, as this wavelength is appropriate
and famous for bio-sensing purposes [67]. For calculating the trans-
mission spectra and getting a TE photonic band gap, (PBG) PWE
method is used. Based on the nanocavity coupled PhC waveguide with
double circular-hole defect, point defect is the nominated defect type. It
can produce an effective nanocavity that can produce the high-perfor-
mance characteristics of this technique. A point defect can be induced
by changing the dimensions of a rod or by missing a rod. In this work, a
nanocavity coupled PhC waveguide is created by introducing a double
circular-hole defect as shown in Fig. 1(a).
Fig. 1(b) represents the transmission spectrum for the designed
nanocavity coupled PhC waveguide with a double circular-hole defect
in the absence of the analyte (i.e. only air exists). The resonant wave-
length is 1.657 μm as shown in Fig. 1(b). The high performance pro-
posed structure is generated by optimizing three design parameters.
First, changing the radius of the adjacent rods. Second, shifting the
adjacent rods with respect to the origin of the lattice. Finally, changing
the radius of nanocavity. The proposed blood component biomedical
sensor structure uses the resonant wavelength as a measuring indicator.
It exhibits variation with a change in the refractive index of the cavity.

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N.A. Mohammed, et al. Results in Physics 14 (2019) 102478

Table 4 Result and discussion

The resonant wavelength, sensitivity and quality factor of blood components for
final design stage at the optimized parameters that provide ultra-quality factor This section will be divided into two main design stages. The first
extracted from step number 13 Table 3. stage will concentrate on achieving remarkable compactness and dis-
Types of blood Resonant Sensitivity Quality Size (µm2) tinguishing between ten blood components as initial two goals for this
components studied wavelength (nm/RIU) factor (unit work. This is done in Section 3.1. This is followed in Section 3.2 by a
(µm) less) detailed design setup, simulation, and evaluation that target merging
Water 1.79059 410.87 10231.94 9.4 × 5.5
the aforementioned specifications in Section 3.1 with ultra-sensitivity
Cytop 1.79153 401.55 6890.50 and ultra-quality factor sensing operation.
Blood plasma 1.791596 390.27 7857.88
White blood 1.792555 382.09 10391.62
component Remarkable compactness and sensing ten types of blood components.
Hemoglobin 1.793201 363.68 7440.67
Red blood component 1.7955 351.25 10561.76
It is worth mentioning that this work will re-design and optimize the
Sylgard184 1.797483 331.35 8559.44
Biotin-streptavidin 1.799437 320.97 9832.99 novel nanocavity Photonic Crystal Waveguide blood sensor with a
Polyacrylamide 1.799443 319.56 10905.71 double circular-hole defect to achieve the goals of this work. As a re-
Bovine serum albumin 1.800447 309.46 7596.82 minder, they are extremely high sensitivity, ultra-quality factor, and
Urethane 1.801425 304.41 10353.02
remarkable compactness simultaneously. The new design starts to ex-
dimethacrylate
plore the most appropriate values for the proposed nanocavity double
holes that are shown in Fig. 1(a). They are the radius and shifting of the
As indicated previously, there are three important performance two circular holes from each other with respect to the origin of the
judgment factors for any biomedical sensor. They are a quality factor, lattice. The two holes are where the base analyte (i.e. water) is placed
sensitivity, and compactness. The quality factor is defined as the ratio inside the nanocavity.
between obtained resonant wavelength λ to change in the wavelength Before applying the analyte (i.e. air exist), the nanocavity, which is
at Full Width Half Maximum Δλ as shown in Fig. 1(b). The quality introduced by missing the center rod, gives resonant wavelength at
factor should be as high as possible and it is unit-less. Quality factor 1.657 μm and the blood sample may be processed before it is analyzed
measures the selectivity level of the sensor. The desired resonant peak [70–72]. Processing prepares the real blood sample for accurate de-
should be as sharp as possible to enhance the quality factor [68]. tection regardless of the sensing technique. For PhC-based technique,
the processing makes the blood sample homogenous so that any sample
λ (resonant ) can be sensed precisely even if it is applied in the small area of nano-
Q=
Δλ (FWHM ) (1) cavity.
When replacing air with the analyte, the measured refractive index
where λ (resonant ) is wavelength at resonance and Δλ (FWHM ) is the should be higher compared to the air condition and one can expect a
difference of wavelengths obtained at FWHM. related change in the resonance wavelength. This is the basic idea of
The Sensitivity (S) is the ratio of obtained change in the resonant sensing. The propagation velocity of light gets reduced when it passes
wavelength due to change in the refractive index. Sensitivity is to be through the analyte having more refractive indices [73,74]. It’s a well-
measured in terms of nm/RIU and it should be as high as possible. known procedure for the PhC-based biomedical sensors to get the re-
Sensitivity measures how much the output of the sensor is varying with sonant wavelength when air exists at the sensing location (i.e. in this
minute changes in input [67,69] work nanocavity) to be used as a reference for following sensing stages.
After that, the non-infected analyte (i.e. in this work, the normal blood
Δλ sample) is applied and the design is tested and optimized to achieve the
S= (nm . RIU−1)
Δn (2) targeted performance and goals. Finally, the infected blood samples are
applied to the previously optimized design and sensing results and
where Δλ is changing in resonant wavelength and Δn is changing in behavior are observed [17,18].
refractive index. The modified design is obtained by changing the radius of the

Fig. 6. Normalized transmission spectra of blood components for final design stage at the optimized parameters that provide ultra-quality factor extracted from step
number 13 Table 3.

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N.A. Mohammed, et al. Results in Physics 14 (2019) 102478

Fig. 7. Sensor lattice structure for final design stage at the optimized parameters that provide high sensitivity extracted from step number 17 Table 3 in the base
analyte (i.e. water) condition.

Fig. 8. Normalized transmission spectra of blood components for final design stage at the optimized parameters that provide high sensitivity extracted from step
number 17 Table 3.

Table 5 tested to verify this work’s goals.

The resonant wavelength, sensitivity and quality factor of blood components for The results indicate that optimum radius is 0.16a and the locations
final design stage at the optimized parameters that provide extremely high of two circular-hole defects are 0.135 and −0.135 respectively as
sensitivity extracted from step number 17 Table 3. shown in Fig. 2. The first advantage from this selection is achieving
Types of blood Resonant Sensitivity Quality Size (µm2) ultra-compact sensor area of 9.4 × 5.5 µm2. This meets a targeted goal
components studied wavelength (nm/RIU) factor in this work. Remarkability will arise during the comparison to relate
(µm) (unit less) PhC-based biomedical blood component sensor as it will be verified in
Water 1.813215 473.38 6715.61 9.4 × 5.5
Table 1.
Cytop 1.813409 460.03 6085.27 The output of transmission spectra corresponding to ten types of
Blood plasma 1.814367 449.62 7257.47 different blood components and base analyte (i.e. water) is shown in
White blood 1.815346 439.85 6674.07 Fig. 3 that can easily distinguish between blood components. The re-
component
sonant wavelength corresponds to each component of blood type and to
Hemoglobin 1.816401 419.48 7324.20
Red blood component 1.8183505 403.38 6041.03 the design in Fig. 2 that is tabulated in Table 2.
Sylgard184 1.820397 379.99 6843.60 Unfortunately, this proposed design (i.e. Fig. 2) provides low and
Biotin-streptavidin 1.82145 365.44 5692.03 unacceptable performance regarding sensitivity and quality factor,
Polyacrylamide 1.82153 364.00 3373.20
especially when compared to the related PhC-based biomedical blood
Bovine serum albumin 1.8233815 354.00 4414.97
Urethane 1.8243815 347.99 4417.39
component sensor and when remarkable sensing performance is tar-
dimethacrylate geted. Table 2 lists these values associated with each component of the
blood. These results indicate that the current design should be opti-
mized further to meet the remaining goals of this work (i.e. extremely
nanocavity double holes from 0.11a to 0.19a and by shifting one cir- high sensitivity and ultra-quality factor).
cular-hole defect from 0.17 to 0.13 and another one from −0.17 to
−0.13 relative to the origin of the lattice. After that, results will be

7
N.A. Mohammed, et al.
Verification of ultra-quality factor and extremely high sensitivity
Based on the previous section results and keeping the optimized
parameters that provide both compactness and sensing ten types of
blood components, one enters this final design stage. Recall that the
optimized parameter values are optimum radius = 0.16a and the lo-
cations of the two circular-hole defects are 0.135 and −0.135 respec-
tively as shown in Fig. 2.
The key tool for this final design stage is an extensive optimization
process for Si rods named as A, B, C, D, E and F that are located near the
proposed nanocavity double holes as shown in Fig. 4. Optimization
takes place in the radius of each one and shifting with respect to the
origin of the lattice. Locations and shifts are set initially as indicated by
values of step number in Table 3. Note that this design stage should
achieve the remaining goals of this work (i.e. extremely high sensitivity
and ultra quality factor) while keeping the already achieved targets (i.e.
remarkable compactness and sensing ten types of blood components).
Table 3 provide the resonance wavelength, quality factor, and
sensitivity for a wide range of different combinations related to the
radius and shift between Si rods named A, B, C, D, E, and F are located
near the proposed nanocavity double holes with respect to the origin of
the lattice. It is worth mentioning that Table 3 follows the well-known
procedure of the related PhC biomedical optimization process.
When the results of a proposed design are applied using the base
analyte (i.e. water) sample, it’s usually expected that if the design
achieves a remarkable performance on the normal analysis, it will show
a corresponding one if each component of the blood sample is applied
[22,29,30].
As shown in Table 3, eighteen steps are taken to explore the op-
timum conditions required to achieve the remaining goals of the final
design stage. The simulation indicates two nominated cases. The first
case is the maximum quality factor as shown in step 13 Table 3. The
second case is the maximum sensitivity shown in step 17 Table 3.
By applying the analyte, Table 4 mainly shows values of sensitivity
and quality factor for ten types of blood components. As expected, re-
sults after applying the analyte show remarkable quality factor for
blood components with the remarkable compactness that is kept from
the first design stage. The output of transmission spectra corresponding
to blood components for this case is shown in Fig. 6.
Although these results are not enough to cover this work’s goals, the
high sensitivity case that corresponds to step number 17 in Table 3 may
provide us with better performance and a larger chance to meet exactly
the targeted goals.
As indicated previously, the optimization results that provide high
sensitivity and correspond to step 17 Table 3 are investigated now. The
lattice structure of this case is shown in Fig. 7. One can find that this
case will be the optimum choice for this work and will be recommended
as the optimal solution.
The choice taken by observing (Figs. 7, 8 and Table 5) achieves
extremely high sensitivity, simultaneous sensing activity, and remark-
able compactness compared to all related literatures. This choice does
not provide the high-quality factor as indicated in the previous dis-
cussion (i.e. Figs. 5, 6 and Table 4). But the two design aspects also
make this choice the optimum for the quality factor. First, the levels of
the quality factor in this case (Figs. 7, 8 and Table 5) achieve the goal,
targeted in this work, of being higher than those achieved in the related
works which make these results “more than enough” for accurate sen-
sing. The other point is that in the previous discussion (i.e. Figs. 5, 6
and Table 4), the levels of sensitivity are not acceptable as indicated
previously. The output of transmission spectra corresponding to blood
components for this case is shown in Fig. 8.
Conclusion
This work provides what is claimed to be a step toward future blood
component-based refractive index PhC sensors. The proposed sensor is
8
Results in Physics 14 (2019) 102478
capable of accurately and simultaneously distinguishing between ten
types of blood components. The optimized design successfully achieves
the targets that are aimed in this work. A relatively high sensitivity,
remarkable quality factor, and compactness are achieved. Their levels
are noticeable compared to related literatures. This is done through
proposing and optimizing a design for nanocavity coupled PhC wave-
guide with a double circular-hole defect and a hexagonal lattice of si-
licon rods. These merits are associated with the price that is paid in the
complexity of the proposed design. Together with the more than ac-
ceptable sensitivity, this work provides remarkable quality factor. By
definition, the higher the quality factor, the more sharp resonance
peaks. This means that the proposed sensor can accurately and si-
multaneously detect and differentiate between multiple components of
blood. Finally, remarkable compactness is achieved to be
9.4 × 5.5 µm2. Quasi-distributed sensors or an array of sensors can be
the future trend for this work.
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