Surface plasmon resonance sensor sensitivity enhancement using gold-dielectric material

Abstract

There has been increasing interest in the field of surface plasmon resonance sensing technology according to its advantages such as the small amount of sensing samples re-quired, freedom of electromagnetic interference and greater sensitivity. This research investigates the using of a thin layer of dielectric material such as Barium Titanate (BaTio3) over the Gold (Au) layer for enhancing the sensitivity of the surface plasmon resonance sensor-based phase interrogation technique. BaTio3 is adopted due to its excellent dielectric proper-ties such as high dielectric constant and low dielectric loss. Numerical results have demon-started that the surface plasmon resonance sensor with utilizing thin layer of the BaTio3 lay-er (5nm) over a fixed Au layer thickness of (50nm) exhibited a high sensitivity of (250 degree/RIU) among other thickness values of BaTio3. Contrarily, the comparison of the surface plasmon resonance sensor without utilizing BaTio3 layer provides (160 degree/RIU) for fixed Au layer thickness (50nm). Hence, using of 5mm thin layer of BaTio3 over 50nm of Au lay-er within surface palsmon layer yield higher sensitivity of 250 (degree/RIU).