The Influence of Structural Parameters on the Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensor Based on a Side-Polished Macrobending Plastic Optical Fiber

Abstract

In this paper the influences of the structured parameters, namely, metal layer thickness, polished depth, macrobending radius and polished angle on the refractive index sensing performances for the side-polished macrobending plastic optical fibers (POFs) based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors were investigated. A simple and controllable rotary grinding technique was introduced to fabricate the proposed sensor. The performances of sensitivity, resolution and full width at half maximum (FWHM) were evaluated. The results have demonstrated that the SPR sensor performances could be improved by changing the structural parameters, and the highest sensitivity obtained was 4793.1 nm/RIU when the external refractive index was 1.410. The proposed POFs based SPR sensors are easy fabrication, robust, and compact in size, which are useful for chemical and biological sensing.