Supramolecule Stripped MoS2 Nanosheets for Enhanced Surface Plasmon Resonance Spectroscopy Application

Abstract Molybdenum disulfide nanosheets (MoS2 NSs) show great promise in the field of optical biosensors due to its unique optical transparency and semiconducting properties. In this work, supramolecule calix[4]arene (pSC4) modified MoS2 NSs (pSC4-MoS2 NSs) was synthesized through a one-step preparation method. The strong p-π binding and electrostatic interactions between pSC4 and MoS2 NSs increased the stripping efficiency by preventing aggregation of nanosheets. Based on pSC4-MoS2 NSs, a simple and feasible surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor was proposed. SPR refractive index change experiments were conducted to evaluate the sensor’s sensitivity performance, and the three main parameters of sensitivity were improved. Benefiting from the modification of pSC4, proteins were captured with higher surface coverage through the host-guest recognition, which is identical to optimization analysis experiment. According to a bovine serum albumin antibody immune experiment, pSC4-MoS2 NSs based SPR sensors provided a new sensitive sensing interface with a 50.85% SPR signal increased compared that of MoS2 NSs modification. Therefore, supramolecule modified MoS2 NSs is promising for application to SPR immunosensing for the detection of cancer biomarkers.