Fabrication and measurement of optical waveguide sensor based on localized surface plasmon resonance

Abstract We propose a novel localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) sensor system based on polymer material. The proposed LSPR system consists of the incident medium with low-loss polymer waveguide and the chemically immobilized plasmonic nanoparticles for on-chip LSPR sensing. Because of low coupling efficiency of conventional methods, usually intricate test equipment such as dark field microscopes equipped with cooled charge-coupled device detectors is required to perform nanoparticles LSPR sensing. Using a polymer optical waveguide instead of conventional free-space excitation techniques (e.g., using an objective lens) in the LSPR sensing system offers miniaturization, low cost, and potable sensing capability. The integration of this hybrid plasmonic-photonic sensor with optical system based on fiber optic is measured to refractive index with a sensitivity of 3.10/RIU.