• Photonics Research
  • Vol. 7, Issue 8, 939 (2019)
Cheng Li1, Lei Chen1、2, Euan McLeod1, and Judith Su1、3、*
Author Affiliations
  • 1College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA
  • 2State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China
  • 3Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA
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    DOI: 10.1364/PRJ.7.000939 Cite this Article Set citation alerts
    Cheng Li, Lei Chen, Euan McLeod, Judith Su. Dark mode plasmonic optical microcavity biochemical sensor[J]. Photonics Research, 2019, 7(8): 939 Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    Whispering gallery mode (WGM) microtoroid optical resonators have been effectively used to sense low concentrations of biomolecules down to the single molecule limit. Optical WGM biochemical sensors such as the microtoroid operate by tracking changes in resonant frequency as particles enter the evanescent near field of the resonator. Previously, gold nanoparticles have been coupled to WGM resonators to increase the magnitude of resonance shifts via plasmonic enhancement of the electric field. However, this approach results in increased scattering from the WGM, which degrades its quality (Q) factor, making it less sensitive to extremely small frequency shifts caused by small molecules or protein conformational changes. Here, we show using simulation that precisely positioned trimer gold nanostructures generate dark modes that suppress radiation loss and can achieve high (>106) Q with an electric-field intensity enhancement of 4300, which far exceeds that of a single rod (2500 times). Through an overall evaluation of a combined enhancement factor, which includes the Q factor of the system, the sensitivity of the trimer system was improved 105× versus 84× for a single rod. Further simulations demonstrate that unlike a single rod system, the trimer is robust to orientation changes and has increased capture area. We also conduct stability tests to show that small positioning errors do not greatly impact the result.
    Δωω=ΔV[E0ε0Δε(r)E+H0μ0Δμ(r)H]dVV[ε0ε(r)E0·E+μ0μ(r)H0·H]dVεbE0α(ω)E02ε0εrVm|E0|max2,(1)

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    α(ω)=(α000α000α),(2)

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    α,=ΔVε0εmεbG,εm+(1G,)εb,(3)

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    G=Rs1e2e2[1+12eln(1+e1e)],(4)

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    G=1G2,(5)

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    fE=ΔV|Ec(r)|2dVΔV|E(r)|2dV,(6)

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    fC=fQfE=QcQ0fE,(7)

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    dbWGMdt=(iΩWGMΓWGM)bWGM+iκb1+iκb2++iκbn,db1dt=(iΩ1Γ1)b1+iκbWGM,dbndt=(iΩnΓn)bn+iκbWGM,(8)

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    H=[ΩWGM+iΓWGMκκκΩ1+iΓ1000κ0Ωn+iΓn].(9)

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    Cheng Li, Lei Chen, Euan McLeod, Judith Su. Dark mode plasmonic optical microcavity biochemical sensor[J]. Photonics Research, 2019, 7(8): 939
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