Enhancement of Sensitivity with High Reflective Index Guided Wave Nanomaterials for a Long Range Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensor

A guided wave long range surface plasmon resonance (GW LRSPR) sensor was proposed in this investigation. In the proposed sensor, high refractive index (RI) dielectric films (i.e., CH3NH3PbBr3 perovskite, silicon) served as the guided wave (GW) layer, which was combined with the long range surface plasmon resonance (LRSPR) structure to form the GW LRSPR sensing structure. The theoretical results based on the transfer matrix method (TMM) demonstrated that the LRSPR signal was enhanced by the additional high RI GW layer, which was called the GW LRSPR signal. The achieved GW LRSPR signal had a strong ability to perceive the analyte. By optimizing the low and high RI dielectrics in the GW LRSPR sensing structure, we obtained the highest sensitivity (S) of 1340.4 RIU-1 based on a CH3NH3PbBr3 GW layer, and the corresponding figure of merit (FOM) was 8.16 X 104 RIU-1 deg(-1). Compared with the conventional LRSPR sensor (S = 688.9 RIU-1), the sensitivity of this new type of sensor was improved by nearly 94%.

Automated summary

This study proposes a guided wave long range surface plasmon resonance sensor that achieves high sensitivity through optimization of dielectric materials in the sensing structure.