Abstract

A one-dimensional photonic crystal (PhC) with termination by a metal film—a plasmonic photonic-crystal slab—has been theoretically analyzed for its optical response at a variation of the dielectric permittivity of an analyte and at a condition simulating the molecular binding event. Visualization of the Bloch surface wave resonance (SWR) was done with the aid of plasmon absorption in a dielectric/metal/dielectric sandwich terminating a PhC. An SWR peak in spectra of such a plasmonic photonic crystal (PPhC) slab comprising a noble or base metal layer was shown to be sensitive to a negligible variation of refractive index of a medium adjoining to the slab. As a consequence, the considered PPhC-based optical sensors exhibited an enhanced sensitivity and a good robustness in comparison with the conventional surface-plasmon and Bloch surface wave sensors. The PPhC biosensors can be of practical importance because the metal layer is protected by a capping dielectric layer from contact with analytes and, consequently, from deterioration.

Highlights

  • It is noted that highly sensitive, reliable diagnostic approaches are necessary for probing lower abundance proteins in analytes, when detecting diseases at early stages [1,2]

  • We summarize theoretical results on analysis of the Bloch surface wave excited in plasmonic photonic crystal (PPhC) with termination by a single plasmonic layer of a noble or base metal

  • To compare performances of PPhC sensors with the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and conventional surface wave resonance (SWR) counterparts, the maximum of reflectance ∆Rmax was evaluated when searching in a spectral range of 700–1500 nm through D, α and ε′′. (Evaluation for the SPR sensor was done in a spectral range of 700–3000 nm; calculations showed that the maximum response was at λ = 2642 nm and any further increase of the calculation range is not essential.) Figure 3 summarizes data on the performance of the sensors

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Summary

Introduction

It is noted that highly sensitive, reliable diagnostic approaches are necessary for probing lower abundance proteins in analytes, when detecting diseases at early stages [1,2]. Plasmonic photonic-crystals (PPhC) with termination by gold films have been theoretically analyzed for its optical response at a variation of the dielectric permittivity of an analyte [31] and in a situation modeling the event of biomolecular binding [32]. In these works, a sharp attenuation peak associated with SWR has been visualized in p-polarized reflection spectra due to plasmon absorption in gold (the situation where SPR and SWR are excited simultaneously).

Model Calculation
Results
Conclusions

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