Strongly coupled plasmonic systems on optical fiber sensors: A study on nanomaterial properties

New paths to increase the sensing performance of plasmonic sensors have been reported in recent years. There are several methodologies to achieve such purpose, namely by optimizing the nanostructure, nanomaterial and even the sensing platform. Recently the use nanoparticles over plasmonic thin films have been reported and shown sensitivity enhancement, when compared to a bare thin film. Nevertheless, a nanomaterial combination between NP and thin film has not been studied. In this work it was studied such plasmonic materials in order to optimize not only refractometric sensitivity but also decrease the resultant plasmonic band width. It was found that for Au, Ag and Cu thin films, the deposition of plasmonic nanoparticles resulted in an overall refractometric sensitivity and figure of merit (FOM) increase. The larger FOM increase was obtained for the Ag thin film, from 42 to 162 when coupled to Si nanoparticles. The greater sensitivity increase was achieved for a Cu thin film coupled to a Si nanoparticle, with an increase from 1745 to 3230 nm/RIU.