Plasmonic sensing is an established technology for real-time biomedical diagnostics and air-quality monitoring. While intensity and wavelength tracking are the most commonly used interrogation methods for Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR), several works indicate the potential superiority of phase interrogation in detection sensitivity. Here, we theoretically and numerically establish the link between ultra-high sensitivities in phase interrogation SPR sensors and the critical coupling condition. However, reaching this condition requires a technically infeasible angstrom-level precision in the metal layer thickness. We propose a robust solution to overcome this limitation by coupling the SPR with a phase-change material (PCM) thin film. By exploiting the multilevel reconfigurable phase states of PCM, we theoretically demonstrate ultra-high phase sensitivities with a limit of detection as low as $10^{-10}$ refractive index unit (RIU). Such a PCM-assisted SPR sensor platform paves the way for unprecedented sensitivity sensors for the detection of trace amounts of low molecular weight species in biomedical sensing and environmental monitoring.
In this paper, we present a plasmonic refractometric sensor that works under normal incidence; allowing its integration on a fiber tip. The sensor's material and geometry exploit the large scattering cross-section given by high-contrast of the index of refraction subwavelength dielectric gratings. Our design generates a hybrid plasmonic-Fano resonance due to the interference between the surface plasmon resonance and the grating response. We optimize the sensor with a merit function that combines the quality parameter of the resonance and the field enhancement at the interaction volume where th…
Within our recently proposed generalized nonlocal optical response (GNOR) model, we revisit the fundamental problem of an optically excited plasmonic dimer. The dimer consists of two identical cylinders separated by a nanometre-sized gap. We consider the transition from separated dimers via touching dimers to finally overlapping dimers. In particular, we focus on the touching case, showing a fundamental limit on the hybridization of the bonding plasmon modes due to nonlocality. Using transformation optics we determine a simple analytical equation for the resonance energies of the bonding plasm…
We show that electric field confinement in surface plasmon polaritons propagating at the metal/dielectric interfaces enhances the loss due to Landau damping and which effectively limits the degree of confinement itself. We prove that Landau damping and associated with it surface collision damping follow directly from Lindhard formula for the dielectric constant of free electron gas Furthermore, we demonstrate that even if all the conventional loss mechanisms, caused by phonons, electron-electron, and interface roughness scattering, were eliminated, the maximum attainable degree of confinement …
We report sensing of single nanoparticles using disordered metallic nanoisland substrates supporting surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). Speckle patterns arising from leakage radiation of elastically scattered SPPs provides a unique fingerprint of the scattering microstructure at the sensor surface. Experimental measurements of the speckle decorrelation are presented and shown to enable detection of sorption of individual gold nanoparticles and polystyrene beads. Our approach is verified through bright-field and fluorescence imaging of particles adhering to the nanoisland substrate.
We configure and analyze a nanostructured device that hybridizes grating modes and surface plasmon resonances. The model uses an effective index of refraction that considers the volume fraction of the involved materials, and the propagation depth of the plasmon through the structure. Our geometry is an extruded low-order diffraction grating made of dielectric nano-triangles. Surface plasmon resonances are excited at a metal/dielectric interface, which is separated from the analyte by a high-index dielectric layer. The optical performance of the refractometric sensor is highly competitive in se…
In this article, a chiral plasmonic hydrogen-sensing platform using palladium-based nanohelices is demonstrated. Such 3D chiral nanostructures fabricated by nanoglancing angle deposition exhibit strong circular dichroism both experimentally and theoretically. The chiroptical properties of the palladium nanohelices are altered upon hydrogen uptake and sensitively depend on the hydrogen concentration. Such properties are well suited for remote and spark-free hydrogen sensing in the flammable range. Hysteresis is reduced, when an increasing amount of gold is utilized in the palladium-gold hybrid …
We present a refractometric sensor realized as a stack of metallic gratings with subwavelength features and embedded within a low-index dielectric medium. Light is strongly confined through funneling mechanisms and excites resonances that sense the analyte medium. Two terminations of the structure are compared. One of them has a dielectric medium in contact with the analyte and exploits the selective spectral transmission of the structure. The other design has a metallic continuous layer that generates surface plasmon resonances at the metal/analyte interface. Both designs respond with narrow …
Plasmonic nanostructures with large local field enhancement have been extensively investigated for sensing applications. However, the quality factor and thus the sensing figure of merit are limited due to relatively high ohmic loss. Here we propose a novel plasmonic sensor with ultrahigh figure of merit based on super-narrow Rayleigh anomaly (RA) in a mirror-backed dielectric metasurface. Simulation results show that the RA in such a metasurface can have a super-high quality factor of 16000 in the visible regime, which is an order of magnitude larger than the highest value of reported plasmoni…
Tunable and ultrasensitive surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors are highly desirable for monitoring stress hormones such as cortisol, a steroid hormone formed in the adrenal glands in the human body. This paper describes the detection of cortisol using a bimetallic SPR sensor based on highly anisotropic two-dimensional material, i.e., phosphorene. Thicknesses of bi-metal layers, such as copper (Cu) and nickel (Ni), is optimized to achieve strong SPR excitation. The proposed sensor is rotated in-plane with a rotation angle around the z-axis to obtain phosphorene anisotropic behavior. The per…
Typical nanoparticle-based plasmonic index sensors detect the spectral shift of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) upon the change of environmental index. Therefore, they require broadband illumination and spectrometers. The sensitivity and flexibility of nanoparticle-based index sensors are usually limited because LSPR peaks are usually broad and the spectral position cannot be freely designed. Here, we present a fully designable index sensing platform using a plasmonic Doppler grating (PDG), which provides broadband and azimuthal angle-dependent grating periodicities. Different from …
The impact of the system design on the control of coupling between planar waveguide modes and surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) is analyzed. We examine how the efficiency of the coupling can be enhanced by an appropriate dimensioning of a multi-layer device structure without using additional gratings. We demonstrate that by proper design the length of the device can be dramatically reduced through fabrication a surface plasmon resonance sensor based on the SPP-photon transformation rather then on SPP dissipation.
The extraordinary sensitivity of plasmonic sensors is well known in the optics and photonics community. These sensors exploit simultaneously the enhancement and the localization of electromagnetic fields close to the interface between a metal and a dielectric. This enables, for example, the design of integrated biochemical sensors at scales far below the diffraction limit. Despite their practical realization and successful commercialization, the sensitivity and associated precision of plasmonic sensors are starting to reach their fundamental classical limit given by quantum fluctuations of lig…
In this paper the angular characteristics of a multimode fiber SPR sensor are theoretically investigated. By separating the contributions of beams incident at different angles, a compact model is presented to predict the shift of the resonance wavelength with respect to the angle and the environmental refractive index. The result suggests that the performance of conventional fiber SPR sensors can be substantially improved by optimizing the incident angle. Furthermore, our investigation suggests some problems in previous reports.
Metal-coated microsphere monolayers as surface plasmon resonance sensors operating in both transmission and reflection modes
National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies（同位素和分子技术研究发展中心）；Institute for Interdisciplinary Research in Bio-Nano-Sciences, Babes-Bolyai University（巴比什-博约伊大学生物纳米科学交叉研究所）
In this work, we proposed a high resolution D-shaped photonic crystal fiber (PCF) surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor based on gold grating. Gold grating is introduced to modulate the resonance wavelength and enhance the refractive index (RI) sensitivity. Structure parameters of PCF and gold grating are analyzed by finite element method (FEM) for optimizing the SPR sensor. The simulation results indicate that air hole pitch, air hole diameter and gold thickness and grating constant have little influence on the sensitivity of refractive index, which reduces the requirement of precise process…
Quantum resources can enhance the sensitivity of a device beyond the classical shot noise limit and, as a result, revolutionize the field of metrology through the development of quantum-enhanced sensors. In particular, plasmonic sensors, which are widely used in biological and chemical sensing applications, offer a unique opportunity to bring such an enhancement to real-life devices. Here, we use bright entangled twin beams to enhance the sensitivity of a plasmonic sensor used to measure local changes in refractive index. We demonstrate a 56% quantum enhancement in the sensitivity of state-of-…
Multiple surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) waves excited at the interface of a homogeneous isotropic metal and a chiral sculptured thin film (STF) impregnated with silver nanoparticles were theoretically assessed for the multiple-SPP-waves-based sensing of a fluid uniformly infiltrating the chiral STF. The Bruggemann homogenization formalism was used in two different modalities to determine the three principal relative permittivity scalars of the silver-nanoparticle-impregnated chiral STF infiltrated uniformly by the fluid. The dynamic sensitivity increased when silver nanoparticles were present…
We report on a non-interacting technique for thermal characterization of fluids based on surface plasmon resonance interrogation. Using liquid volumes less than 20 micro liters we have determined the materials' thermo-optic coefficients with an accuracy of better than 10^{-5} 1/°C and demonstrated temperature sensing with an accuracy of 0.03 °C. The apparatus employs a low-power probe laser, requiring only a single wavelength, polarization and interrogation angle for accurate characterization. The device is particularly suited for precise diagnostics of liquids and gases within microfluidic sy…
We show that for the optimized angle of incidence, the SPR based optical sensors exhibit dual resonance in the near-infrared region around which the sensor becomes exceptionally high sensitive. Both the resonances show opposite spectral shift with an ambient refractive index, increasing the differential shift by many folds. The physical reason behind the dual resonance and opposite spectral shifts are also explained using the modal analysis and the phase-matching condition. The presence of dual resonance is highly susceptible to the angle of incidence, which facilitates the sensors to work in …
In this paper, we propose a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) structure based on Kretschmann configuration incorporating layers of Silicon and BaTiO$_3$ on top of Ag for real-time detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) using thiol tethered DNA as a ligand. Extensive numerical analysis based on transfer matrix theory as well as finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique has been performed to characterize the sensor response considering sensitivity, full width at half maxima, and minimum reflection. About 7.6 times enhanced sensitivity has been obtained using…
Nanoporous gold can be exploited as plasmonic material for enhanced spectroscopy both in the visible and in the near infrared spectral regions. In particular, with respect to bulk metal it presents interesting optical properties in the infrared where it presents a significantly higher field confinement with respect to conventional materials. This latter can be exploited to achieve extremely high sensitivity to the environment conditions, hence realizing interesting sensors. Here we compare the sensitivity of a plasmonic resonators made of nanoporous gold with a similar structures made of bulk …
A high-performance wide-angle refractive index sensor based on a simple onedimensional (1D) metallic deep nanogroove array with high aspect ratio is experimentally fabricated and demonstrated. The 1D deep groove array is featured by the excitation of magnetic plasmon (MP), referring to an effective coupling of incident electromagnetic waves with a strong magnetic response induced inside the deep grooves. Utilizing the MP resonances that are extremely sensitive to the surrounding dielectric medium, we successfully achieve a refractive index sensitivity (RIS) up to $\sim$1300 nm/RIU, which is hi…
We theoretically demonstrate a high-sensitivity, graphene-plasmon based refractive index sensor working in the mid-infrared at room temperature. The bulk figure of merit of our sensor reaches values above $10$, but the key aspect of our proposed plasmonic sensor is its surface sensitivity which we examine in detail. We have used realistic values regarding doping level and electron relaxation time, which is the limiting factor for the sensor performance. Our results show quantitatively the high performance of graphene-plasmon based refractive index sensors working in the mid-infrared.
The possibility of using weak optical signals to perform sensing of delicate samples constitutes one of the main goals of quantum photonic sensing. Furthermore, the nanoscale confinement of electromagnetic near fields in photonic platforms through surface plasmon polaritons has motivated the development of highly sensitive quantum plasmonic sensors. Despite the enormous potential of plasmonic platforms for sensing, this class of sensors is ultimately limited by the quantum statistical fluctuations of surface plasmons. Indeed, the fluctuations of the electromagnetic field severely limit the per…
We present SERS-active metal holographic metasurfaces fabricated from metal periodical nanograting deposited on a dielectric substrate. The metasurface consists of a modulated dielectric, which is covered by a thin silver layer. The metasurface operates as an open plasmon resonator. The theory of plasmons excited in the open resonator formed by a metal nanograting is presented. The large local electromagnetic field is predicted for optical frequencies. The excitation of plasmons is experimentally demonstrated in the metasurface designed on a 4-inch Si wafer. The enhancement of the local electr…
We developed a nanoplasmonic sensor platform employing the extraordinary optical properties of one-dimensional nanogratings patterned on 30nm-thick ultrathin Ag films. Excitation of Fano resonances in the ultrathin Ag nanogratings results in transmission spectra with high amplitude, large contrast, and narrow bandwidth, making them well-suited for rapid and highly-sensitive sensing applications. The ultrathin nanoplasmonic sensor chip was integrated with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic channel, and the measured refractive index resolution was found to be 1.46x10-6 refractive index u…
Plasmon-polaritons are among the most promising candidates for next generation optical sensors due to their ability to support extremely confined electromagnetic fields and empower strong coupling of light and matter. Here we propose quantum plasmonic immunoassay sensing as an innovative scheme, which embeds immunoassay sensing with recently demonstrated room temperature strong coupling in nanoplasmonic cavities. In our protocol, the antibody-antigen-antibody complex is chemically linked with a quantum emitter label. Placing the quantum-emitter enhanced antibody-antigen-antibody complexes insi…
Surface Plasmon Resonance sensors are a well-established class of sensors which includes a very large variety of materials and detection schemes. However, the development of portable devices is still challenging as due to the intrinsic complexity of the optical excitation/detection schemes. In this work we show that Nanoporous gold (NPG) films may overcome these limitations by providing excellent sensitivity without the need of sophisticated fabrication approaches and/or optical setup. The sensing mechanism is related the co-localization of optical energy and analytes into the pores that promo…
We evaluate the sensing properties of plasmonic waveguide sensors by calculating their resonant transmission spectra in different regions of the non-Hermitian eigenmode space. We elucidate the pitfalls of using modal dispersion calculations in isolation to predict plasmonic sensor performance, which we address by using a simple model accounting for eigenmode excitation and propagation. Our transmission calculations show that resonant wavelength and spectral width crucially depend on the length of the sensing region, so that no single criterion obtained from modal dispersion calculations alone …
A surface plasmon resonance imaging biosensor based on $\text{MoS}_2$ deposited on Aluminium substrate is designed for high imaging sensitivity and detection accuracy. The proposed biosensor exhibits better performance than graphene-based biosensor in the near-infrared regime. A high imaging sensitivity of more than 970 $\text{RIU}^{-1}$ is obtained at the wavelength of 1540 nm. The effect of aluminium thickness, number of $\text{MoS}_2$ layers and the refractive index of sensing layer are investigated to obtain an optimized design for high sensor performance. In addition, the sensor performan…
We investigate the use of twin-mode quantum states of light with symmetric statistical features in their photon number for improving intensity-sensitive surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors. For this purpose, one of the modes is sent into a prism setup where the Kretschmann configuration is employed as a sensing platform and the analyte to be measured influences the SPR excitation conditions. This influence modifies the output state of light that is subsequently analyzed by an intensity-difference measurement scheme. We show that quantum noise reduction is achieved not only as a result of t…
Electromagnetic (EM) wave detection over a large spectrum has recently attracted significant amount of attention. Traditional electronic EM wave sensors use large metallic probes which distort the field to be measured and also have strict limitations on the detectable RF bandwidth. To address these problems, integrated photonic EM wave sensors have been developed to provide high sensitivity and broad bandwidth. Previously we demonstrated a compact, broadband, and sensitive integrated photonic EM wave sensor, consisting of an organic electro-optic (EO) polymer refilled silicon slot photonic cry…
Plasmonic lasers provide a paradigm-changing approach for the generation of coherent light at the nanoscale. In addition to the usual properties of coherent radiation, the emission of plasmonic lasers can feature high sensitivity to the surrounding environment, which makes this technology attractive for developing high-performance and highly-integrated sensing devices. Here, we investigate a plasmonic laser architecture based on a high-Q plasmonic crystal consisting of a periodic arrangement of nanoholes on a thin gold film cladded with an organic-dye-doped SiO$_2$ gain layer as the gain mater…
Plasmonic metamaterials support the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), which is sensitive to the change in the dielectric environment and highly desirable for ultrasensitive biochemical sensing. In this work, a novel design of supercell metamaterials of four mutually rotating split ring resonators (SRRs) is proposed, where simultaneous excitations of odd (N=1 and N = 3) and even (N=2) resonance modes are realized due to additional asymmetry from the rotation and show insensitivity to two orthogonal polarizations. The full utilization of these three resonance dips show bright prospects…
With the unique possibilities for controlling light in nanoscale devices, graphene plasmonics has opened new perspectives to the nanophotonics community with potential applications in metamaterials, modulators, photodetectors, and sensors. This paper briefly reviews the recent exciting progress in graphene plasmonics. We begin with a general description for optical properties of graphene, particularly focusing on the dispersion of graphene-plasmon polaritons. The dispersion relation of graphene-plasmon polaritons of spatially extended graphene is expressed in terms of the local response limit …
We investigate a method to directly measure the phase of a laser beam reflected from a metallic film after excitation of surface plasmon polaritons. This method permits real time access to the phase information, it increases the possible speed of data acquisition, and it may thus prove useful for increasing the sensitivity of surface plasmon based sensors.
The measurement of parameters that describe kinetic processes is important in the study of molecular interactions. It enables a deeper understanding of the physical mechanisms underlying how different biological entities interact with each other, such as viruses with cells, vaccines with antibodies, or new drugs with specific diseases. In this work, we study theoretically the use of quantum sensing techniques for measuring the kinetic parameters of molecular interactions. The sensor we consider is a plasmonic resonance sensor -- a label-free photonic sensor that is one of the most widely used …
We report thorough measurements of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) running along nearly perfect air-gold interfaces formed by atomically flat surfaces of chemically synthesized gold monocrystals. By means of amplitude- and phase-resolved near-field microscopy, we obtain their propagation length and effective mode index at visible wavelengths (532, 594, 632.8, 729, and 800 nm). The measured values are compared with the values obtained from the dielectric functions of gold that are reported in literature. Importantly, a reported dielectric function of monocrystalline gold implies $\sim 1.5$ ti…
Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), as promising alternative plasmonics supporting materials to graphene, exhibit potential applications in sensing. Here, we propose an ultrasensitive, accurate long-range surface plasmon resonance (LRSPR) imaging biosensor with two-dimensional TMDC layers, which shows higher detection accuracy than that of conventional SPR biosensor. It is found that the imaging sensitivity of the proposed LRSPR biosensor can be enhanced by the integration of TMDC layers, which is different from the previous graphene-based LRSPR or SPR imaging sensor, who…
Detecting specific target analytes and differentiating them from interfering background effects is a crucial but challenging task in complex multi-component solutions commonly encountered in environmental, chemical, biological, and medical sensing applications. Here we present a simple nanoplasmonic interferometric sensor platform that can differentiate the adsorption of a thin protein layer on the sensor surface (surface effects) from bulk refractive index changes (interfering background effects) at a single sensing spot, exploiting the different penetration depths of multiple propagating sur…
Current optical detection schemes for single molecules require light absorption, either to produce fluorescence or direct absorption signals. This severely limits the range of molecules that can be detected, because most molecules are purely refractive. Metal nanoparticles or dielectric resonators detect non-absorbing molecules by a resonance shift in response to a local perturbation of the refractive index, but neither has reached single-protein sensitivity. The most sensitive plasmon sensors to date detect single molecules only when the plasmon shift is amplified by a highly polarizable labe…
We demonstrate an efficient double-layer light absorber by exciting plasmonic phase resonances. We show that the addition of grooves can cause mode splitting of the plasmonic waveguide cavity modes and all the new resonant modes exhibit large absorptivity greater than 90%. Some of the generated absorption peaks have wide-angle characteristics. Furthermore, we find that the proposed structure is fairly insensitive to the alignment error between different layers. The proposed plasmonic nano-structure designs may have exciting potential applications in thin film solar cells, thermal emitters, nov…
A plasmonic coupled-cavity system, which consists of a quarter-wave coupler cavity, a resonant Fabry-Perot detector nanocavity, and an off-resonant reflector cavity, is used to enhance the localization of surface plasmons in a plasmonic detector. The coupler cavity is designed based on transmission line theory and wavelength scaling rules in the optical regime, while the reflector cavity is derived from off-resonant resonator structures to attenuate transmission of plasmonic waves. We observed strong coupling of the cavities in simulation results, with an 86% improvement of surface plasmon loc…
We demonstrate that the surface second-harmonic generation can lead to the formation of nonlinear plasmonic whispering-gallery modes (WGMs) in microcavities made of metallic nanowires. Since these WGMs are excited by induced surface nonlinear dipoles, they can be generated even when they are not coupled to the radiation continuum. Consequently, the quality factor of these nonlinear modes can be as large as the theoretical limit imposed by the optical losses in the metal. Remarkably, our theoretical analysis shows that nonlinear plasmonic WGMs are characterized by fractional azimuthal modal num…
Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is generally observed by excitation of surface plasmon polaritons on the metal (Au/Ag) surface. In order to utilize the SPR phenomenon for sensing application, the metal surface is functionalized with suitable ligands. Although such functionalization can enhance the specific adsorption capability of the sensor however due to large thickness of the ligands, the plasmonic field of the metal surface becomes less sensitive towards the adsorption of analytes. In the next generation SPR based sensor, graphene can be utilized not only as plasmonic material but also a s…
Experimental evidence of mode-selective evanescent power coupling at telecommunication frequencies with efficiencies up to 75 % from a tapered optical fiber to a carefully designed metal nanoparticle plasmon waveguide is presented. The waveguide consists of a two-dimensional square lattice of lithographically defined Au nanoparticles on an optically thin silicon membrane. The dispersion and attenuation properties of the waveguide are analyzed using the fiber taper. The high efficiency of power transfer into these waveguides solves the coupling problem between conventional optics and plasmonic …
