Novel biosensors based on Weyl semimetals

Abstract We introduce two novel optical biosensors based on the combination of a Weyl semimetal and a finite one-dimensional photonic crystal to diagnose different analytes such as Jurkat cancer cells. Weyl semimetals are new emerging topological materials recently purposed for employment in optical devices due to their intriguing properties. We demonstrate that hybrid Tamm and surface plasmon polaritons can be excited in these structures under the circumstance of attenuated total reflection. In particular, we find that adjusting parameters of the first biosensor to excite Tamm plasmon polaritons leads to higher sensing performance, while in the second biosensor excitation of the surface plasmon polaritons provides higher functionality of this biosensor. According to our results, biosensors based on the Weyl semimetals can be used for sensitive and accurate recognition of different analytes, and they may form a new platform for high-performance biosensors.