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Review
. 2024 Dec 4;10(24):e40923.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e40923. eCollection 2024 Dec 30.

Optical sensors based on plasmonic nano-structures: A review

Shiva Khani  1 , Pejman Rezaei  1
Affiliations
Review

Optical sensors based on plasmonic nano-structures: A review

Shiva Khani et al. Heliyon. .

Abstract

Optical sensors are among the most significant optical devices that have found extensive applications for THz sensing. Surface plasmon-based sensors have attracted increasing attention more than other kinds of optical sensors such as photonic crystal, optical fiber, and graphene sensors, owing to their compact footprint, fast reaction, and high sensitivity value. Therefore, this work reviews plasmonic sensor structures divided into three general categories. These category types are plasmonic sensors based on conventional basic platforms, coupled resonator structures, and periodic structures. Furthermore, periodic structures include two sub-categories named metal-insulator and insulator-insulator periodic structures. The most prevalent methods used to investigate such sensors are the finite element method (FEM) and finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. Also, the metal and insulator materials used are usually silver, gold, air, Si, SiO2, and so on. Based on the noted features, such sensors have obtained specific attention for many applications in chemistry, physics, and biomedical.

Keywords: Metal-insulator-metal waveguide; Optical; Sensitive sensor; Surface plamon polaritons; Tunable sensor; plasmonic sensor.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
EM spectrum showing different band ranges [76].
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Conventional basic platforms used for designing plasmonic sensors, (a) A resonator coupled to two WGs from both sides, (b) A resonator coupled to a WG from one side, (c) Ring resonator-based platform.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Lorentzian resonance of a hypothetical narrow-band band-pass structure and its shifted resonance.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Examples of plasmonic sensors based on basic platforms: (a) Disk resonator [122], (b) Hexagonal resonator [123], (c) Rectangular resonator [124], (d) Triangular resonator [125], (e) Elliptical resonator [126], (f) Rectangular ring-shaped resonator [127], (g) Stub resonators [128], Ring resonator-based structure using a (h) disk ring [129], (i) square ring [130], (j) hexagonal ring [131].
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Examples of plasmonic sensors based on the coupled-resonator structures: (a) H-shaped resonators [132], (b) Ring-shaped resonators [133], (c) Disk resonators [134], (d) Rectangular resonators [135], (e) Disk and stub resonators [136], (f) Disk and rectangular resonators [137], (g) Square ring-shaped and disk ring-shaped resonators [138], (h) Semi-circle ring-shaped and cross-shaped resonators [139].
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Examples of plasmonic sensors based on the MI periodic structures: (a) Metal nano-rods in a square resonator coupled to rectangular resonators [140], (b) Metal nano-rods in a square resonator [141], (c) Metal nano-rods in an elliptical resonator [142], (d) Metal nano-rods in a semi-circle ring-shaped resonator [143], (e) Metal nano-rods in a T-shaped resonator [144].
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Examples of plasmonic sensors based on the II periodic structures: (a) Periodic insulator layers [145], (b) Cross-slit metallic photonic crystals and insulator photonic crystals [146], (c) Periodic insulator layers coupled to a metal layer [147].
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Fabrication steps of proposed sensors reported in (a) [126], (b) [148].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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