Resolution enhancement of surface plasmon resonance sensors with spectral interrogation: resonant wavelength considerations

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) has been used extensively in biosensing implementation as a high-sensitivity and label-free sensing technique. For SPR sensors based on spectral interrogation, their performance in terms of refractive index (RI) resolution differs substantially when operating at different resonant wavelengths. This paper presents a feasible scheme of enhancing the sensor resolution by simulating measured SPR curves using an experiment-assisted simulation model to effectively explore the optimal resonant wavelength for the sensing system. It shows that the variation of experimentally obtained RI resolution with the resonant wavelength is in good accordance with the simulation results. In addition, the RI resolution at the derived optimal resonant wavelength is at least 2 times better than that at the commonly used resonant wavelength region both experimentally and theoretically. The methods of the proposed scheme potentially facilitate optimization of various sensor instrumentation for high-resolution SPR sensing. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America