Optical and Quantum Electronics (2022) 54:73

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-021-03434-5

A tunable graphene‑based refractive index sensor for THz

bio‑sensing applications

Somayeh Alizadeh1 · Ehsan Zareian‑Jahromi1 · Valiollah Mashayekhi2

Received: 6 October 2021 / Accepted: 2 December 2021 / Published online: 4 January 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021

Abstract
In this paper, a sensitive graphene-based terahertz sensor is proposed. The proposed sen-
sor consists of a patterned graphene geometry on top of a ­SiO2 layer. To eliminate the
transmission of proposed structure, a bottom gold layer is utilized. Moreover, a Polysillicon
layer is located at a near distance under the graphene layer to provide all practical issues
encountered with biasing the embedded graphene layer. According to utilized optimiza-
tion procedure and resulting sensing performance, the designed sensor is sensitive to sur-
rounding medium and can be used as a refractive index sensor with linear performance.
The presented structure is based on enhancing electromagnetic fields confinement. This
sensing mechanism can be used in biomedical applications for detecting different compo-
nents of body fluids including blood glucose. Moreover, the proposed sensor can be used to
distinguish between normal and cancerous cells. The obtained performance is investigated
considering three different cells, namely Hela, basal, and MDA-MB-231 (breast cells). The
simulation results show sensitivities of 3 and 3.23 THz/RIU together with figure of merits
of 15 and 16.8 RIU-1 for cancer cells and blood components, respectively. The proposed
structure results in an almost linear relation between resonance frequency shift and refrac-
tive index changes, which is an important property demanded by refractive index sensors.
The proposed sensor benefits from simple structure resulting to an easy fabrication process.

Keywords Graphene · Biomedical application · Refractive index sensor · Cancerous cells

1 Introduction

The outstanding properties of graphene have attracted many researches in wideband

high frequency applications. The graphene layer results in great mechanical strength
and remarkably electronic properties (Novoselov et al. 2004; Geim and Novoselov
2010). Due to these unique mechanical and electrical properties, many applications are
introduced such as sensors (Vasić et al. 2013), absorbers (Xiao et al. 2018; Alaee et al.

* Ehsan Zareian‑Jahromi
[email protected]
1
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz,
Iran
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Iran

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73 Page 2 of 13 S. Alizadeh et al.

2012), switches (Chu and How Gan 2013), waveguides (Christensen et al. 2012), and
photodetectors (Xia et al. 2009).
Graphene is a two-dimensional nanomaterial composed of carbon atoms. A graphene
layer can lead to a strong confinement of incident fields according to excitation of gra-
phene surface plasmons (GSPs) at a graphene-dielectric interface (Garcia de Abajo
2014). The graphene conductivity can be modeled by two intra-band and inter-band
terms in terahertz (THz) range according to Kubo formula. The resulting conductiv-
ity can be tuned by varying corresponding chemical potential of embedded graphene
layer. Therefore, the graphene layer can provide tunable THz structures together with
enhanced absorbing performance (Zareian-Jahromi et al. 2021). Since the graphene
structure can directly interact with adjacent environment, the corresponding electronic
properties are affected. Therefore, graphene-based structures are considered in sensor
applications including biosensors (Rezazadeh and Soheilifar 2021; Hossain et al. 2021),
wireless sensors (Moreno-Hernandez et al. 2018; Torrente-Rodríguez et al. 2020), tem-
perature sensors (Sampath et al. 2018; Liu et al. 2019), and refractive index sensors
(Rastgordani and Kashani 2020; Jabbarzadeh and Habibzadeh-Sharif 2021). These
applications demand a narrowband transmission spectrum as well as low power con-
sumption (Chai et al. 2013), low footprint (Li et al. 2016), and high sensitivity (Panda
and Pukhrambam 2021).
Like microwave electromagnetic waves, THz waves can also provide the feasibility of
propagation in different non-conducting materials (Vanani et al. 2018). Electron oscilla-
tions at dielectric-metal interface initiate surface plasmons wave (SPW) propagating along
dielectric-metal interface (Maier 2007). SPWs are confined to the interface resulting in
a strong field which is strongly sensitive to the refractive index changes of surrounding
environment (Barnes et al. 2003). Therefore, the surface plasmon resonance which is the
resonant coupling of SPWs at dielectric-metal surface, can be used in sensing applications
(Barlow and Cullen 1953). Many graphene-based absorbers can be used as refractive index
sensors in THz regime. Hu et al. (2021) proposed a tunable refractive index sensor based
on a graphene/photonic crystal (PC)/defected layer/PC hybrid Tamm system. The proposed
sensor consists of graphene with multilayer PC structures periodically arranged with poly
4-methyl-pentene. Hou and Jiang (2021) proposed a tunable sensitive refractive index sen-
sor considering a configuration of silica, silicon, and graphene materials. The proposed
configuration consists of silica deposited on silicon substrate periodically and graphene
deposited on silica. Asgari et al. (2020) proposed a chiral meta-structure for bio-sensing
applications. It consists of bi-layer cross-shaped graphene ribbons. All mentioned works
used complicated structures, mainly consist of two or more graphene layers. In this work, a
simple mono layer graphene-based absorber is presented for bio-sensing applications.
To enhance the confinement of electromagnetic waves, a simple graphene-based meta-
material sensor is presented in THz regime. Since there is a tradeoff between ease of fabri-
cation and sensors properties, this work is focused on designing a simple sensor structure
with acceptable sensing performance for bio-sensing applications. The proposed sensor
consists of a patterned graphene geometry on top of a S ­ iO2 layer. Moreover, a bottom gold
layer is utilized to eliminate the transmission of presented structure. To consider all feasible
issues encountered with biasing of utilized graphene layer, a Polysillicon layer is located at
a near distance under the graphene layer. By tuning corresponding chemical potential val-
ues of embedded graphene layer, the absorption frequency can be varied. A full parameter
investigation on resulting absorption performance is presented. The designed sensor ben-
efits from a linear relation among resonance frequencies and refractive index values. To
investigate the sensing property of proposed sensor, cancer and blood cells are considered

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A tunable graphene‑based refractive index sensor for THz… Page 3 of 13 73

demonstrating a good performance in terms of figure of merit together with sensitivity

values.
The manuscript is organized as follows. The proposed structure as well as correspond-
ing geometrical parameters are presented in Sect. 2. The demanded feature of tunability is
investigated in Sect. 3 whereas corresponding medical applications are detailed in Sect. 4.
Finally, conclusion achievements are provided d in Sect. 5.

2 Structure design and parameters

As illustrated in Fig. 1, a patterned graphene layer is presented as unit cell of suggested

sensor structure. The graphene layer of a thickness of tg is grown on a substrate of S ­ iO2
(silicon dioxide) with a thickness of ts together with relative permittivity of ɛr = 2.25 (Yan
et al. 2019). To eliminate the transmission of the structure, a bottom layer consisting of
gold with conductivity of σ = 4.56 × ­107 S/m and thickness of tm is used (Fu et al. 2018).
As shown in Fig. 1b, utilized graphene patches are fed through graphene wires to pro-
vide the tunability of proposed structure. Moreover, the graphene layer results in demanded
impedance matching between the proposed structure and surrounding medium in case of
plane wave incidence. To consider all practical issues encountered with biasing the gra-
phene layer, a Polysillicon layer with thickness of t1 is placed at a near distance of t2 under
the graphene layer. It is noted that t1 and t2 are chosen as 1 nm. It is noted that selected
embedded layers provide fabrication feasibility. The gold layer can be sputtered on ­SiO2
whereas ­SiO2 is also a proper substrate for graphene deposition which is commonly used in
experimental investigations (Hill et al. 2011).
The graphene layer leads to a strong confinement of fields and hence, the illuminat-
ing incident wave is trapped between two graphene and gold layers. To excite GSPs at
the graphene-dielectric interface, the incident wave polarization must be tangential to the
surface of the structure (i.e. x direction as shown in Fig. 1) whereas the incident wave is
travelling in the –z direction. The corresponding polarization of incident wave can strongly
interact to the surface plasmon modes and propagate along the interface of proposed struc-
ture, whereas other polarizations would be directly reflected. Equation (1) represents the

E(x)
H(y)
ls
k
tg d
b
t1 t2

ws a lg w
ts m lx

fy wg
tm
ly

Graphene SiO2 Gold Polysillicon

(a) (b)
Fig. 1  Proposed unit cell of sensor structure: a side view and b top view

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73 Page 4 of 13 S. Alizadeh et al.

graphene conductivity in THz Regime represented by Kubo formula (Bahadori-Haghighi

et al. 2017):
[ ( )]
je2 𝜇c je2 2||𝜇c || − ℏ 𝜔 + j𝜏 −1
𝜎G (𝜔) = ( )+ ln ( ) , (1)
𝜋ℏ2 𝜔 + j𝜏 −1 4𝜋ℏ 2||𝜇c || + ℏ 𝜔 + j𝜏 −1

where e = 1.6 × ­10–19 C is the electron charge, ω is considered angular frequency, ℏ repre-
sents the reduced Plank constant, τ is the relaxation time, and µc is corresponding chemical
potential. The graphene conductivity consists of two parts. First part is related to intra-
band term whereas inter-band transition is modeled by second part (Yan et al. 2019). It is
noted that corresponding intra-band term is dominant at THz frequencies.
By varying the chemical potential of embedded graphene layer, the corresponding
obtained conductivity can be tuned to a desired value. The tunability of the graphene layer
can be expressed as follows (Huang et al. 2018),
√
𝜋𝜀0 𝜀r Vg
𝜇c = ℏ𝜐f , (2)
etg

where Vg denotes the external bias voltage and νf = ­106 m/s is the Fermi velocity. The
monolayer graphene can be modeled with a thin dielectric layer including corresponding
permittivity of ɛg = 1 + jσG(ω)/(ωɛ0tg) in which tg = 0.34 nm and ɛ0represents the free space
permittivity (Bahadori-Haghighi et al. 2017).
All simulations in this paper are carried out using the CST Microwave Studio software.
CST software uses finite element method for frequency domain solver. The governing elec-
tromagnetic equation is based upon the second-order vector wave equation as follows,
( ) ( )
∇×E 𝜔2 𝜎
∇× − 2 𝜀r − j E = 0, (3)
𝜇r c 𝜔𝜀0

where µr, ɛr, and σ are relative magnetic permeability, relative electric permittivity, and the
electric conductivity, respectively. Moreover, E is the electric field intensity, c is the speed
of light, and ∇× denotes the curl operator.
First, a unit cell is designed and the periodic boundary conditions are considered in both
x and y directions. Moreover, an open boundary condition is set in z direction and corre-
sponding S-parameters are calculated. According to (3), transmission, T =|S21|2, and reflec-
tion, R =|S11|2, coefficients are used to calculate corresponding absorption coefficient (A) as
(Bai et al. 2021):
A = 1 − T − R. (4)
First, best efforts have been made to optimize the structure in order to achieve an almost
perfect narrowband absorption performance. Table 1 demonstrates the optimized param-
eters of proposed sensor considering µc = 0.7 eV and τ = 1 ps. It is notable that all optimiza-
tions are carried out using built-in “genetic algorithm” optimizer in CST software. The uti-
lized algorithm is among popular algorithms for optimizing sensor structures. To consider
practical issues, the presented tg value represents a mono layer graphene layer whereas
other tg values (up to 7 layer structure) do not highly affect the resulting performance.
Figure 2 presents the absorption spectra with and without embedded graphene layer. The
adjustable performance of presented graphene-based sensor is demonstrated in Fig. 2. By var-
ying corresponding chemical potential value of embedded graphene layer from 0.7 to 0.8 eV,

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A tunable graphene‑based refractive index sensor for THz… Page 5 of 13 73

Table 1  Optimized parameters of proposed sensor in Fig. 1

Parameter Value Parameter Value (μm) Parameter Value (μm)

tg 0.34 (nm) b 0.3 ws 3.14

tm 0.2 (μm) d 0.5 ly 1
ts 1.5 (μm) a 0.5 m 1.2
w 3.3 (nm) wg 0.6 lx 2.6
ls 4.2 (μm) lg 0.9 fy 0.1

Fig. 2  Absorption spectrum of

the proposed sensor in Fig. 1
with and without patterned gra-
phene layer considering µc = 0.7,
0.8 eV

Fig. 3  Electrical field distri-

bution corresponding to the
resonance frequency of f = 8.21
THz in Fig. 2

the absorption resonance frequency is shifted from f = 7.5 to f = 8.21 THz. This phenomenon
is according to increase of graphene plasmon resonance frequencies as µc is increased (Nour-
bakhsh et al. 2020). Moreover, the structure has a weak absorption performance in absence of
graphene layer.
Figure 3 illustrates the electrical field distribution in Fig. 2 corresponding to the resonance
frequency of f = 8.21 THz. It is obvious that GSPs are stimulated at the graphene-dielectric
interface. It is notable that the best choice of GSPs resonance is not exactly occurred at sens-
ing performance resonance.

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73 Page 6 of 13 S. Alizadeh et al.

Fig. 4  Absorption spectra of pro-

posed sensor in Fig. 1 consider-
ing various µc values

Fig. 5  Absorption performance

of proposed sensor in Fig. 1 cor-
responding to cases mentioned
in Table 2

3 Tunability of proposed sensor

As mentioned previously, varying the chemical doping of graphene layer yields to cor-
responding conductivity changes, and this in turn, adds the desired tunability to the
proposed sensor (Yan et al. 2019). The tunability feature of proposed sensor is illus-
trated in Fig. 4 considering µc = 0.1 ~ 1.2 eV and d = 0.5 μm. The resulting absorption
peak is altered as µc is varied. It is noted that perfect absorption is obtained consid-
ering µc = 0.7 eV according to best achieved impedance matching. This phenomenon
is occurred at a single choice of µc whereas other µc values result in reduced imped-
ance matching, and hence, decreased absorption peaks. Also, the resulting resonance
frequency is enhanced as µc is increased. As previously mentioned, the first part of σG in
(1) is dominant at THz range. Moreover, the resonance frequency is occurred at a deter-
mined value of σG. As µc is increased, this specified σG value stays unchanged at higher
values of ω in (1) resulting in enhanced resonance frequencies.

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A tunable graphene‑based refractive index sensor for THz… Page 7 of 13 73

Other geometrical parameters in Fig. 1 can be re-optimized to achieve desired goal of

perfect absorption. For instance, Table 2 shows the optimized µc values to obtain perfect
absorption considering each d sample in d = [0.2, 0.3, …, 1] range. Once d is chosen, opti-
mization is performed to obtain perfect absorption resulting in reported µc and correspond-
ing resonance frequency (fmax) values. The corresponding absorbing performances are
demonstrated in Fig. 5. It is noted that the resonant frequencies are varied between 6.61
and 8.3 THz.

4 Medical applications of proposed THz biosensor

Variations of the surrounding medium electrical parameters affect the properties of GSPs.
Moreover, the proposed sensor has a narrow bandwidth for absorption applications (Fig. 2).
This narrow bandwidth together with the sensitivity of GSPs to surrounding medium
parameters make the designed sensor a good candidate for refractive index sensing applica-
tions in THz regime. The main factors of such sensors representing the sensing quality are
sensitivity (S) and Figure of Merit (FoM). The mentioned parameters S and FoM are calcu-
lated from (Yan et al. 2019):
Δf [ ]
THz
S= , (5)
Δn RIU
[ ]
S 1
FoM = , (6)
FWHM RIU
where ∆f is the absorption frequency shift due to corresponding refractive index changes
of the surrounding medium ∆n, and FWHM is the full width at half maximum. Figure 6a
illustrates the designed sensor including an analyte layer with thickness ta = 0.6 µm on
top of the sensor. Corresponding absorption performances are demonstrated in Fig. 6b
as the refraction index of sensing medium is varied between n = 1 and 2. It is noted that
d = 0.5 μm is considered in all simulations.
Now, we investigate the influence of analyte thickness value (ta) on the absorption spec-
trum and sensing parameters. In Table 3, obtained values of quality factor (Q), S, and FoM
are listed considering refractive indices altering from n = 1.2 to n = 1.5 and different ta val-
ues. It is noted that Q is defined as fmax/FWHM. The maximum sensitivity of S = 2.64 THz/
RIU is obtained in case of ta = 1 µm.

Table 2  Optimized parameters No d (µm) µc (eV) fmax (THz)

resulting in a perfect absorption
for each d value
1 0.2 1 8.3
2 0.3 0.85 8.01
3 0.4 0.75 7.7
4 0.5 0.7 7.5
5 0.6 0.65 7.29
6 0.7 0.6 6.99
7 0.8 0.6 6.92
8 0.9 0.55 6.66
9 1 0.55 6.61

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73 Page 8 of 13 S. Alizadeh et al.

y
ta
V

(a) (b)
Fig. 6  a Proposed THz sensor in Fig. 1 with analyte on top of the structure, b Corresponding absorption
spectrum for different refractive indices of the surrounding medium considering ta = 0.6 μm

Table 3  Sensing parameters of proposed sensor in Fig. 6a considering different analyte thickness values
and n variation from 1.2 to 1.5
ta (µm) S (THz/RIU) fmax (THz) FWHM (THz) FoM ­(RIU−1) Q

0.3 1.983 8.2 0.168 11.804 48.810

0.4 2.056 8.208 0.16 12.850 51.300
0.5 2.2889 8.203 0.16 14.306 51.269
0.6 2.34 8.2 0.16 14.625 51.250
0.7 2.448 8.2 0.16 15.300 51.250
0.8 2.496 8.208 0.16 15.600 51.300
0.9 2.484 8.196 0.16 15.525 51.225
1 2.64 8.208 0.16 16.500 51.300
1.1 2.552 8.2 0.169 15.101 48.521
1.2 2.504 8.208 0.168 14.905 48.857

It is important in refractive index sensors to provide demanded linear relation between

resonance frequencies and refractive indices for a specified analyte thickness value. Fig-
ure 7 demonstrates the resonance frequencies versus corresponding refractive indices for
ta = 0.6 µm. The obtained results represent the high performance of presented structure.
In Fig. 8, FoM and FWHM are demonstrated as a function of the test medium refrac-
tive index considering ta = 0.6 µm. As n increases from 1 to 2, the resulting FoM increases
from 11.26 to 16.19 whereas corresponding FWHM decreases from 0.23 THz to 0.16 THz.
Resulting trends for FoM and FWHM are almost linear as shown in Fig. 8.
Furthermore, as it was discussed in previous section, µc can affect sensing parameters of
proposed sensor. This interesting feature adds tunability property to the proposed structure.
To analyze obtained tunability property, Fig. 9 illustrates the effect of µc on FoM and sen-
sitivity of proposed structure. Chemical voltage values alter the graphene’s carrier density,
and hence, the sensing parameters are varied due to interaction between these carriers and

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A tunable graphene‑based refractive index sensor for THz… Page 9 of 13 73

Fig. 7  Resonance frequency ver-

sus refractive index of the analyte
in Fig. 6a considering ta = 0.6 µm

Fig. 8  FoM and FWHM as a

function of test medium refrac-
tive index in Fig. 6a considering
ta = 0.6 µm

Fig. 9  Sensitivity and FoM of

proposed sensor in Fig. 6a versus
chemical voltage values consid-
ering ta = 0.6 µm

surrounding medium. It is evident that the optimum value of µc = 0.8 eV yields to the maxi-
mum sensitivity of 2.59 THz/RIU and FoM = 13.64 ­RIU−1.
Refractive index sensing mechanism consists of applying an analyte layer on the top
of proposed sensor to observe corresponding resonance frequency shift. To practically

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73 Page 10 of 13 S. Alizadeh et al.

clarify the sensing property of proposed sensor, different analytes with medical applica-
tions are utilized including cancer and blood cells as follows.

4.1 Cancer cells

In this work, three different cancer cells named Hela, basal, and MDA-MB-231 (breast can-
cer cells) are used on investigate the performance of proposed sensor. The refractive indi-
ces of biomaterials at visible to near-infrared regimes are comprehensively investigated in
Giannios et al. (2016). Although these materials have frequency dependent refractive indi-
ces at these frequency regimes, the corresponding refractive indices are constant at 1–10
THz range (Chopra et al. 2016). Hela cells are human cervical cells with n = 1.368 whereas
cancerous Hela cells are modeled with n = 1.392. Basal cells are outermost skin layer with
corresponding n values of 1.36 for normal cells and 1.38 in cancerous case. MDA-MB-231
can be modeled with n = 1.385 for normal breast cells and n = 1.399 in case of cancerous
cells. It is noted that due to rapid cell division of cancel cells and large amount of protein in
the nucleus, cancer cells have higher refractive indices compared to the normal ones (Zeng
2019). Figure 10 illustrates the shift in the peak absorption spectra for these three cancer-
ous cell types whereas optimized values of ta = 1.1 µm and µc = 0.8 eV are considered. The

(a) (b)

(c)
Fig. 10  Absorption spectra of proposed sensor in Fig. 6a for normal and cancerous a Hela, b basal, and c
MDA-MB-231 cells considering ta = 1.1 µm

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Table 4  Sensing parameters of proposed sensor in Fig. 6a considering three different sets of normal and
cancerous cells
Analayte used n absmax fmax (THz) Q FWHM (THz) FoM ­(RIU−1) S (THz/RIU)

Hela cell Normal 1.368 0.997 7.08 35.4 0.2 14.6 2.92
Cancerous 1.392 0.997 7.01 35.05 0.2
Basal cell Normal 1.36 0.996 7.11 35.55 0.2 15 3
Cancerous 1.38 0.997 7.05 35.25 0.2
MDA-MB-231 Normal 1.385 0.997 7.03 35.15 0.2 14.3 2.86
cell Cancerous 1.399 0.998 6.99 34.95 0.2

obtained results are also detailed in Table 4. As examined cells are changed from normal to
cancerous case, a red shift in the peak of absorption spectra is observed.

4.2 Blood components

Here, blood plasma, WBCs, Hemoglobin, and RBCs are considered in comparison with
water as base analyte to investigate the performance of proposed sensor in detecting blood
components (Nourbakhsh et al. 2020). Table 5 lists the achieved sensing parameters cor-
responding to mentioned blood components. As it is clearly observed, the resonance fre-
quency is shifted in case of different blood components. Here, the analyte thickness is
set to optimized value of ta = 0.9 µm. The best achieved results are S = 3.23 THz/RIU and
FoM = 16.8 ­RIU−1 in case of sensing WBCs considering of µc = 0.8 eV.

5 Conclusion

A controllable graphene-based THz sensor is proposed that can be used for various THz
applications including detection of cancer and diabetic cells. The presented structure is
optimized resulting in a perfect and narrow absorption spectrum whereas corresponding
geometrical parameters are detailed in the manuscript. The sensing mechanism is based
on the frequency shift of absorption spectrum resonant peak by variation of test medium.
The proposed sensor has simple design and almost linear relation between frequency shift
and surrounding medium refractive index. The achieved performance has been investigated
for three different normal and cancerous cells together with different blood components.
As a result, sensitivities of 3 and 3.23 THz/RIU together with figure of merits of 15 and

Table 5  Sensing parameters of proposed sensor in Fig. 6a considering various blood component cells
Analayte used Refractive index absmax fmax (THz) Q FWHM (THz) FoM ­(RIU−1) S (THz/RIU)

Water 1.33 0.995 7.225 36.12 0.2 Ref. Ref.

Blood plasma 1.35 0.996 7.168 37.33 0.19 14.78 2.84
WBCs 1.36 0.997 7.128 37.13 0.19 16.8 3.23
Hemoglobin 1.38 0.997 7.084 35.42 0.2 14.08 2.82
RBCs 1.40 0.998 7.04 36.67 0.19 13.75 2.64

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73 Page 12 of 13 S. Alizadeh et al.

16.8 ­RIU−1 are obtained for cancer cells and blood components, respectively. According to
obtained results, the designed sensor is a good candidate for medical applications. More-
over, the designed sensor benefits from simple structure resulting to an easy fabrication
process.

Funding The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work

Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Ethical Standards All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

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