Abstract
We investigated intrinsic noise in plasmonic sensors caused by adsorption and desorption of gaseous analytes on the sensor surface. We analyzed a general situation when there is a larger number of different analyte species. We applied our model to calculate various analyte mixtures, including some environmental pollutants, toxic and dangerous substances. The spectral density of mean square refractive index fluctuations follows a dependence similar to that of generation-recombination noise in photodetectors, flat at lower frequencies and sharply decreasing at higher. Some of the calculated noise levels are well within the detection range of conventional surface plasmon resonance sensors. An AD noise peak is observed in temperature dependence of mean square refractive index fluctuations, thus sensor operating temperature may be optimized to obtain larger signal to noise ratio. A significant property of AD noise is its rise with the decreasing plasmon sensor area, which means that it will be even more pronounced in modern nanoplasmonic devices. Our consideration is valid both for conventional surface plasmon resonance devices and for general nanoplasmonic devices.
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Acknowledgments
This work was partially funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) within the project L521 “Metal-composite Nanomembranes for Advanced Infrared Photonics” and by the Serbian Ministry of Science and technology within the project 11027 “Microsystem and Nanosystem Technologies and Devices”.
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Jakšić, O., Jakšić, Z. & Matović, J. Adsorption–desorption noise in plasmonic chemical/biological sensors for multiple analyte environment. Microsyst Technol 16, 735–743 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-010-1043-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-010-1043-7