Refractive index sensing based on surface plasmon-coupled emission excited by reverse Kretschmann or Tamm structure

Surface plasmon coupled emission (SPCE) is the directional emission of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) through the reverse channels of focused surface plasmon excitation to the far field, which has shown significant possibilities in bioanalysis, medical diagnosis, and so on. We carried out a theor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics letters 2022-10, Vol.47 (19), p.5068-5071
Main Authors: Shen, Zhe, Yu, Hongda, Zhang, Lin, Chen, Yikai
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Diagnosis
Emission
Excitation
Far fields
Medical diagnosis
Polaritons
Radiant flux density
Refractivity
Signal to noise ratio
Spatial resolution
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Summary:Surface plasmon coupled emission (SPCE) is the directional emission of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) through the reverse channels of focused surface plasmon excitation to the far field, which has shown significant possibilities in bioanalysis, medical diagnosis, and so on. We carried out a theoretical study of SPCE to analyze its mechanisms and proposed a new structure to improve the emission intensity of SPCE. We proposed a method for refractive index sensing based on SPCE, consisting of a reverse Kretschmann (RK) or a Tamm structure for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. The corresponding sensing sensitivity reaches 87.61 deg/RIU and 67.44 deg/RIU, respectively. Compared with that in the RK, the far-field radiation intensity of SPCE in the Tamm structure is enhanced by two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, compared with surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing, SPCE sensing can improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and excitation efficiency. Our structures enable refractive index sensing with a high SNR, high spatial resolution, and without the requirement of angular alignment using complex mechanics, which are suitable for practical applications such as quantitative biomolecular detection and medical diagnosis.
ISSN:0146-9592
1539-4794
DOI:10.1364/OL.473495