• Opto-Electronic Engineering
  • Vol. 49, Issue 11, 220217 (2022)
Xinran Wei, Yuzhang Liang*, Yijin He, Yurui Fang, and Wei Peng
Author Affiliations
  • School of Physics, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning 116024, China
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    DOI: 10.12086/oee.2022.220217 Cite this Article
    Xinran Wei, Yuzhang Liang, Yijin He, Yurui Fang, Wei Peng. Tamm-surface plasmon hybrid mode for improving sensing figure of merit[J]. Opto-Electronic Engineering, 2022, 49(11): 220217 Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    Overview: Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing technology has attracted widespread attention due to its advantages of high sensitivity, label-free, and real-time dynamic monitoring. Traditional SPR sensing platform needs the use of a prism, and requires that the transverse magnetic (TM) polarized light incident at a specific angle to satisfy the wave vector matching condition and excite the surface plasmon polariton (SPP) mode at the interface between the metal film and the external environment. Moreover, Tamm plasmon polariton (TPP), as a special plasmon boundary state mode, can be excited by using the boundary between the one-dimensional Bragg photonic crystal (PC) and the metal film and has broad application prospects in the fields of new optoelectronic devices. Compared with SPP, the excitation of TPP does not require wavevector compensation for incident light and can be achieved at any polarization. However, the enhanced electromagnetic field of the TPP mode is mainly localized inside the structure and cannot sense the changes in the external environment, which greatly limits its application in the field of biochemical sensing. To break through this limitation, researchers integrated the one-dimensional Bragg PC structures onto the traditional prism structures to achieve hybrid coupling of SPP mode and TPP mode by using the oblique incident light, which could improve the sensing performance of the SPR sensors. However, this kind of TPP-SPP strong coupling excitation also requires a bulky prism and a precise incident light angle control system, which is not conducive to the miniaturization and integrated application of the structure. Therefore, we propose a feasible design of a grating-coupled multilayer stack in this paper. The structure mainly consists of three parts: a nanometric gold film on the top layer, a one-dimensional Bragg PC in the middle, and a gold nanograting on the bottom. In this structure, the SPP and TPP resonance excitations on the upper and lower surfaces of the top nano-gold film are simultaneously achieved by utilizing the first-order transmitted light of the bottom nanograting. The coupling hybridization between the two modes greatly reduces the resonance bandwidth of the generated hybrid mode, resulting in a significant improvement in its sensing figure of merit. In addition, the coupling hybridization of the SPP and the TPP can be realized in a wide spectral range by changing the period of the nanograting and the thickness of the dielectric layers constituting the one-dimensional Bragg PC. Compared with the traditional prism TPP and SPP dual-mode coupling structure, the designed multilayer nanostructure can realize the resonance coupling of the two modes over broad wavelength ranges at the normal incidence. These results not only make it easier to further integrate and miniaturize the structure, but also have important significance for broadening the practical application of the surface plasmon resonance sensors.The hybrid coupling of Tamm plasmon polariton (TPP) and surface plasmon polariton (SPP) on the surface of a gold film based on the prism coupling has attracted extensive attention and has been widely investigated. However, the traditional excitation configuration has bulky optical elements and requires accurate control of the angle of incident light, which limits its integration and practical application. In order to simplify the excitation condition of the TPP-SPP hybrid mode, a feasible grating-coupled multilayer stack structure is proposed in this paper. The structure mainly consists of three parts: a nanometric thin gold film on the top layer, a one-dimensional Bragg photonic crystal in the middle, and a gold nanograting on the bottom. In this structure, the SPR and TPP resonance excitations on the upper and lower surfaces of the top gold film are simultaneously achieved by utilizing the first-order transmitted light of the bottom nanograting. The hybrid coupling between the two modes greatly reduces the resonance bandwidth of the generated mode, thereby significantly improving the sensing figure of merit of the generated mode. Additionally, the hybrid coupling of both SPP and TPP modes can be realized in a wide spectral range by altering the period of the nanograting and the thickness of the one-dimensional Bragg photonic crystal. Compared with the traditional prism-coupled TPP and SPP dual-mode coupling structures, the designed grating-coupled multilayer nanostructure can realize the resonant coupling of the two modes at the normal incidence without prism and limitation of incident angle. This not only facilitates the further integration and miniaturization of the structure, but also has important significance for broadening the practical application of surface plasmon resonance sensors.
    Xinran Wei, Yuzhang Liang, Yijin He, Yurui Fang, Wei Peng. Tamm-surface plasmon hybrid mode for improving sensing figure of merit[J]. Opto-Electronic Engineering, 2022, 49(11): 220217
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