Resolution enhancement of optical surface plasmon resonance sensor using metamaterial

Abstract

In this paper, we present and discuss a path to extend the enhancement of the resolution of an optical surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor. Basically, our approach is to combine bi-metamaterial layers to design the SPR sensor. The calculation shows that the proposed SPR sensor structure has a preference over the conventional SPR sensors and bimetallic SPR sensors since it gives a much sharper reflectance dip and can achieve considerable sensitivity improvement when compared to the recently reported investigations. The effects of the metamaterial permittivity, permeability, and thickness on the reflectance curve are studied. It is also seen that metamaterial layers improve the field of the proposed SPR structure, which may provide a novel tool to significantly enhance the sensitivity and resolution of the sensors.