Thickness determination in anisotropic media with plasmon waveguide resonance imaging

This paper describes a simple procedure to determine the local thickness of a thin anisotropic layer. It also discriminates between isotropic and anisotropic regions, provided a smoothness hypothesis on the refractive index distribution is satisfied. The procedure is based on the analysis of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) data acquired in an imaging mode. The general arrangement of the setup is the Kretschmann configuration. We show, on an azobenzene modified polymer layer, good agreement between atomic force microscopy and optical measurements of thickness variation. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement