Visible-NIR surface plasmon resonance sensing technology for high precision refractive index detection

Abstract

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), as a representative transition metal disulfide material, has contributed significantly to the development of plasmonic technology toward the near-infrared (NIR). In this Letter, the physical mechanism of MoS2 excitation of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in the NIR is investigated, and it is shown that the MoS2 film can induce the resonance dip to move toward the NIR and demonstrate a sensitivity higher than that in the visible band. A dual-channel SPR sensor capable of operating in the visible and NIR bands for refractive index (RI) detection was also prepared using the cascade method. The simulated and experimental results of the sensor show consistency. The experimental results show that the maximum sensitivity of the NIR detection channel is 14600 nm/RIU in the RI range of 1.333–1.420, which is 37% higher than the sensitivity of the visible channel. However, the visible channel has the advantage of a narrow FWHM. Therefore, the proposed cascaded dual-channel RI sensor combines high sensitivity and narrow FWHM. This dual-channel construction method improves the detection level of RI, promotes the development of SPR sensing technology to the NIR band and significantly improves the narrowband problem existing in the previous multi-channel sensing.