Phase sensitive sensor on Tamm plasmon devices

This work proposes a refractive index sensing concept of a Tamm plasmon (TP) device by using spectroscopic ellipsometry and phase detection. A TP device is generally composed of a 1-D photonic crystal (PC) with a metallic film on top of it. We found that the sensing performance can be improved by adjusting the parameters of the incident angle of polarized light, the top layer thickness, and the central wavelength of the PC. By designing proper parameters, it was found that the change of the phase difference of p-polarized and s-polarized lights, δ∆, can reach 34° when the ambient environment is changed from air (n = 1.00028) to carbon dioxide (n = 1.00045). A sensitivity of δ∆/δn ~2 × 105 °/RIU can then be obtained for the proposed TP device.