Polishing Process Analysis for Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensors in D-Shaped Plastic Optical Fibers

Abstract

In this work we want to compare performances of different plasmonic sensors, obtained by different polishing processes of D-shaped Plastic optical fibers (POFs). Three D-shaped POF plasmonic sensor configurations, obtained by three different polishing processes, have been created and experimentally tested. The proposed devices are based on the excitation of surface plasmons at the interface between the under test medium and a thin gold layer directly deposited on plastic fiber core (D-shaped area). The experimental results have shown that the performances are influenced by surface roughness variations in the D-shaped POF region.