| US 7,460,238 B2 | ||
| Plasmon excitation by the gaussian-like core mode of a photonic crystal waveguide | ||
| Maksim Skorobogatiy, Kirkland (Canada); and Andrei V. Kabashin, Montréal (Canada) | ||
| Assigned to Corporation De L'ecole Polytechnique De Montreal, Montreal, Quebec (Canada) | ||
| Filed on Apr. 24, 2007, as Appl. No. 11/739,270. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2008/0266567 A1, Oct. 30, 2008 | ||
| Int. Cl. G01N 21/55 (2006.01); H01S 3/14 (2006.01); H01S 3/08 (2006.01); G02B 6/12 (2006.01); G02B 6/02 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 356—447 [356/445; 356/448; 372/39; 372/96; 385/14; 385/123] | 26 Claims |
| 1. A surface plasmon resonance sensor for an ambient medium characterized by a refractive index, the surface plasmon resonance
sensor comprising:
an antiguiding waveguide comprising: a core characterized by a refractive index; and a reflector surrounding the core, the
reflector having an external surface and being characterized by a band gap and a refractive index higher than the refractive
index of the core; and
a coating deposited on the external surface of the core, the coating defining with the ambient medium a coating/ambient medium
interface suitable to support surface plasmons;
wherein, in operation:
the coating is in contact with the ambient medium;
the antiguiding waveguide is supplied with an electromagnetic radiation to (a) propagate a mode for sensing having an effective
refractive index lower than the refractive index of the core and higher than the refractive index of the ambient medium and
(b) produce surface plasmons at the coating/ambient medium interface;
the mode for sensing is phase-matched with the surface plasmons at a wavelength within the band gap; and
a variation of the refractive index of the ambient medium results in a variation of loss of the sensing mode to detect a feature
of the ambient medium.
|