title: Silicon-based surface plasmon resonance sensing with two surface plasmon polariton modes.
abstract: Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing on a silicon-based platform is considered. We have studied properties of SPR in a combined silicon-dielectric layer-gold film-sample medium structure and established conditions of the simultaneous excitation of two plasmon polariton modes that provide narrow and well-separated minima of the reflected intensity. It has been shown that the external mode over the gold-sample medium interface demonstrates a highly sensitive response to a change in the refractive index of the sample medium, whereas the internal mode over the dielectric-gold interface is almost insensitive to medium parameters. We propose that the internal mode can be used as an effective reference zero point for miniature and portable SPR-based systems designed for field and multichannel sensing.
authors.affiliation: Laser Processing Laboratory, Department of Engineering Physics, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Case Postale 6079, Succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3A7, Canada. psv@canada.com
authors.forename: Sergiy
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Patskovsky
authors.forename: Andrei V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Kabashin
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Meunier
authors.forename: John H T
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Luong