Surface Plasmon Resonance Features of Corrugated Copper and Gold Films: Grating Mode Operation with Wavelength Interrogation

This work presents a theoretical and experimental results obtained with surface resonance sensors operating in the periodic grating mode. The spatial periodicity of the corrugated surface of the manufactured devices was set to 478 nm. Two types of metallic layers have been tested, one of 50 nm of gold and another of 100 nm of copper. The wavelength interrogation mode has been used and the beam of incident light was shined directly onto the metal layer. The characteristics of the transducer manufactured with the two corrugated surfaces have been explored in the Kretschmann configuration to determine the sensors responsivities. The obtained results confirmed the correctness of the proposed methodology and the feasibility of the proposed transducer designs.The sensor system was tested for situations where a change in the refractive index of the gas occurs due to the insertion of condensed water vapor. Both transducers are tested and results as sensibility and detection limit are presented and compared.