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Surface plasmon optical sensor with enhanced sensitivity using top ZnO thin film

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Abstract

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is one of the most sensitive label-free detection methods and has been used in a wide range of chemical and biochemical sensing. Upon using a 200 nm top layer of dielectric film with a high value of the real part ε′ of the dielectric function, on top of an SPR sensor in the Kretschmann configuration, the sensitivity is improved. The refractive index effect of dielectric film on sensitivity is usually ignored. Dielectric films with different refractive indices were prepared by radio frequency magnetron (RF) sputtering and measured with spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). The imaginary part ε′′ of the top nanolayer permittivity needs to be small enough in order to reduce the losses and get sharper dips. The stability of the sensor is also improved because the nanolayer is protecting the Ag film from interacting with the environment. The response curves of the Ag/ZnO chips were obtained by using SPR sensor. Theoretical analysis of the sensitivity of the SPR sensors with different ZnO film refractive indices is presented and studied. Both experimental and simulation results show that the Ag/ZnO films exhibit an enhanced SPR over the pure Ag film with a narrower full width at half maximum (FWHM). It shows that the top ZnO layer is effective in enhancing the surface plasmon resonance and thus its sensitivity.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Nano Special Plan from Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Plan of Commission (grant No. 1052nm06900), and Ph.D. Program Scholarship Fund of ECNU 2009. Ming Bao also wishes to acknowledges the financial support from the China Scholarship Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, and Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, P.R. China

    Ming Bao, Ge Li, Dongmei Jiang, Wenjuan Cheng & Xueming Ma

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  1. Ming Bao
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  2. Ge Li
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  3. Dongmei Jiang
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  4. Wenjuan Cheng
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  5. Xueming Ma
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Correspondence to Xueming Ma.

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Bao, M., Li, G., Jiang, D. et al. Surface plasmon optical sensor with enhanced sensitivity using top ZnO thin film. Appl. Phys. A 107, 279–283 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-012-6858-x

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