The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) phenomenon is of wide interest due to its sensitivity to changes in surface refractive index for the label-free, highly sensitive and rapid detection of biomarkers.

A highly sensitive optical fiber surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor based on graphene oxide (GO) and staphylococcal protein A (SPA) co-modified tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) is proposed and demonstrated for the detection of human immunoglobulin G (IgG) for the first time. The gold film on the surface of the sensor was first fixed with GO and then modified with an SPA to improve the sensitivity of the sensor. Large specific surface area and abundant functional groups of GO can adsorb more antibodies. The combination of SPA and the antibody molecule Fc region makes the Fab area with antigen-binding sites extend outward, resulting in highly oriented antibody immobilization on the sensor surface and high antigen-antibody binding efficiency. The experimental results show that the sensitivity as well as the limit of detection of GO-SPA-modified TFBG-SPR biosensor is around 0.096 dB/(μg/mL) and 0.5 μg/mL, showing better responses to human IgG solutions with a concentration range of 30-100 μg/mL compared with the TFBG-SPR biosensors modified singly with GO or SPA. The biosensor exhibits the advantages of small size, ease of fabrication, high sensitivity, label-free, and rapid response, and provides a new solution for detecting low concentration of biological solution, presenting great application potential in the biochemistry field.