Hybrid photonic surface-plasmon-polariton ring resonators for sensing applications

We introduce a hybrid photonic surface plasmon ring resonator which consists of a silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) dielectric traveling-wave ring resonator vertically coupled to a thin layer of metallic strip ring resonator made of Silver (Ag) on top. The cladding is assumed to be porous alumina on top of the metal layer, which provides more surface area for the adsorption of target molecules and their efficient interaction with the surface plasmon wave excited at the metal-cladding interface. Simulations show that this hybrid structure has a large refractive index sensitivity due to the excitation of surface plasmon waves and also a relatively narrow resonance linewidth due to the large quality factor of the photonic ring resonator. The Finite Element method is used to systematically design the hybrid structure and to investigate the performance of the hybrid resonator as a refractive index sensor. The proposed structure is very compact and can be implemented on a chip in an integrated platform. Thus, it can be used for lab-on-a-chip sensing applications and is capable of being spectrally and spatially multiplexed for muti-analyte sensing.     

Effect of the dielectric constant of the surrounding medium and the substrate on the surface plasmon resonance spectrum and sensitivity factors of highly symmetric systems: silver nanocubes

Silver nanocubes (AgNCs), 60 nm, have four extinction surface plasmon resonance (SPR) peaks. The finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulation method is used to assign the absorption and scattering peaks and also to calculate the plasmon field intensity for AgNCs. Because AgNCs have a highly symmetric cubic shape, there is a uniform distribution of the plasmon field around them, and they are thus sensitive to asymmetric dielectric perturbations. When the dielectric medium around a nanoparticle is changed anisotropically, either by placing the particle on a substrate or by coating it asymmetrically with a solvent, the plasmon field is distorted, and the plasmonic absorption and scattering spectra could shift differently. For the 60 nm AgNC, we found that the scattering resonance peak shifted more than the absorption peak. This changes the extinction bandwidth of these overlapping absorption and scattering bands, and consequently the figure of merit of the nanoparticle, as a localized SPR sensor, no longer has a constant value.