Abstract
Metal–Insulator-Metal (MIM) structures possess a number of shortcomings which include optical loss, tenability, nanofabrication challenges, chemical instability, incompatible manufacturing process etc. To overcome these shortcomings, the plasmonic properties of heavily n-doped silicon are studied and found to be similar to those of conventional plasmonic metals like gold or silver. A plasmonic refractive index sensor using n-doped silicon instead of metal is designed and analyzed numerically using the finite element method (FEM). A maximum sensitivity of 4900 nm/RIU, which is higher than most of the MIM plasmonic refractive index (RI) sensors proposed to date, is obtained here. The RI sensor reported here provides a significant improvement in the sensitivity of the device along with its compatibility with traditional nanoelectronics.
Highlights
Replacing slow electronic circuits with fast and still small alternative components has been one of the aims of the researchers over the last few decades
This paper reports one of such approaches to use an alternative plasmonic material to form a plasmonic refractive index (RI) sensor with enhanced performance and compatible manufacturing process
To find out the appropriate carrier concentration of n-silicon, A straight waveguide is formed with n-doped silicon/silver and air interface as shown in Fig 4(a) and simulated to obtain the transmission characteristics
Summary
Replacing slow electronic circuits with fast and still small alternative components has been one of the aims of the researchers over the last few decades. Though metals like gold and silver are mostly used materials in plasmonic applications due to their ability to produce and guide SPPs, they have a number of disadvantages. These disadvantages of natural metals like gold and silver limit the performances of the plasmonic devices to a great extent. The real part of the dielectric permittivity of metal is negative, which is one of the most important plasmonic properties of metals [45] This negative real part of the permittivity supports the propagation of SPPs at the interface when the material is interacted with light. This paper reports one of such approaches to use an alternative plasmonic material to form a plasmonic RI sensor with enhanced performance and compatible manufacturing process
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