Antimonene mediated long-range SPR imaging sensor with ultrahigh imaging sensitivity and figure of merit

Abstract

We proposed a long-range surface plasmon (LR-SPR) resonance imaging sensor based on antimonene and magnesium fluoride (MgF2) polymer with ultra-high imaging sensitivity (Simg) and figure of merit (FOM). The effect of dielectric buffer layers (DBL) (such as Cytop, Teflon, MgF2, and LiF) and plasmonic metals (Au, Ag, and Al) on the stimulating long-range surface plasmon polaritons (LR-SPPs) is explored in this work. We numerically demonstrated that the proposed LR-SPR imaging sensor configuration (antimonene-aluminum-MgF2 on 2S2G chalcogenide glass prism) could achieve much higher imaging sensitivity (7028.1 RIU−1) and FOM (335 RIU−1) than the reported papers by taking advantage of antimonene's sensing ability and aluminum's steeper reflectance curve. As a result, the proposed LR-SPR imaging sensor in the field of biosensing is a promising tool for detecting biomolecules. Finally, a fair comparison between the most recently published research publications on prism coupled LR-SPR sensor and the proposed work is made.