Detection limit improvement of surface plasmon resonance based biosensors using statistical hypothesis testing

Abstract

We propose a new approach to improving the resolution of a Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) based biosensing system through the use of the statistical technique of hypothesis testing. Simulated SPR reflectance curves at the wavelength of 632.8 nm in the Kretschmann configuration were generated. Detector specifications were taken from Ames Photonics CMOS Larry-CCD 1024 array detector with a total integration time of 100s and a noise amplitude relative to signal σ = 3 × 10 −6 . We were able to achieve the detection limit of the refractive index difference with respect to water of ∆n = 4 × 10 −8 with 95 % significance level.