Self-optimized metal coatings for fiber plasmonics by electroless deposition.

We present a novel method to prepare optimized metal coatings for infrared Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) sensors by electroless plating. We show that Tilted Fiber Bragg grating sensors can be used to monitor in real-time the growth of gold nano-films up to 70 nm in thickness and to stop the deposition of the gold at a thickness that maximizes the SPR (near 55 nm for sensors operating in the near infrared at wavelengths around 1550 nm). The deposited films are highly uniform around the fiber circumference and in spite of some nanoscale roughness (RMS surface roughness of 5.17 nm) the underlying gratings show high quality SPR responses in water.

[1]  John H. T. Luong,et al.  New strategy for preparing thin gold films on modified glass surfaces by electroless deposition , 2003 .

[2]  D. Thomson,et al.  Optical fiber refractometer using narrowband cladding-mode resonance shifts. , 2007, Applied optics.

[3]  Y. Shevchenko,et al.  Polarization-selective grating excitation of plasmons in cylindrical optical fibers. , 2010, Optics letters.

[4]  Raman Kashyap,et al.  Fiber-Bragg-grating-assisted surface plasmon-polariton sensor. , 2006, Optics letters.

[5]  S. Kawata,et al.  Optical chemical sensor based on surface plasmon measurement. , 1988, Applied optics.

[6]  J. Homola,et al.  Novel spectral fiber optic sensor based on surface plasmon resonance , 2001 .

[7]  Marc Wuilpart,et al.  High resolution interrogation of tilted fiber grating SPR sensors from polarization properties measurement. , 2011, Optics express.

[8]  Jung Jin Ju,et al.  Optical constants of evaporated gold films measured by surface plasmon resonance at telecommunication wavelengths , 2008 .

[9]  J. Homola.  Surface plasmon resonance sensors for detection of chemical and biological species. , 2008, Chemical reviews.

[10]  Jacques Albert,et al.  Plasmon resonances in gold-coated tilted fiber Bragg gratings. , 2007, Optics letters.

[11]  G. Laffont,et al.  Tilted short-period fibre-Bragg-grating-induced coupling to cladding modes for accurate refractometry , 2001 .

[12]  David J. Webb,et al.  Characterization of infrared surface plasmon resonances generated from a fiber-optical sensor utilizing tilted Bragg gratings , 2008 .

[13]  Jen-Fa Huang,et al.  Optical-fiber surface-plasmon-resonance sensor employing long-period fiber gratings in multiplexing , 2006 .

[14]  Hua Zhang,et al.  Temperature Sensing of Metal-Coated Fiber Bragg Grating , 2010, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.

[15]  Patrice Mégret,et al.  Interrogation technique for TFBG-SPR refractometers based on differential orthogonal light states. , 2011, Applied optics.

[16]  M. Perez.  Gibbs-Thomson effects in phase transformations , 2005 .

[17]  Jiří Homola,et al.  Multiple surface plasmon spectroscopy for study of biomolecular systems , 2006 .

[18]  J. Meunier,et al.  Refractive index sensing characteristics of dual resonance long period gratings in bare and metal-coated D-shaped fibers. , 2009, Applied optics.

[19]  Jirí Homola,et al.  Theoretical analysis of a fiber optic surface plasmon resonance sensor utilizing a Bragg grating. , 2009, Optics express.

[20]  S. Yee,et al.  A fiber-optic chemical sensor based on surface plasmon resonance , 1993 .

[21]  Y. Lo,et al.  Athermal fibre Bragg grating strain gauge with metal coating in measurement of thermal expansion coe , 2005 .

[22]  J. Lammertyn,et al.  Fiber optic SPR biosensing of DNA hybridization and DNA-protein interactions. , 2009, Biosensors & bioelectronics.

[23]  J. Kimling,et al.  Turkevich method for gold nanoparticle synthesis revisited. , 2006, The journal of physical chemistry. B.

[24]  H. Raether.  Surface plasma oscillations as a tool for surface examinations , 1967 .

[25]  Byoungho Lee,et al.  Infrared surface plasmon resonance in a subwavelength metallic grating under illumination at a large incidence angle , 2011 .

[26]  Byoungho Lee,et al.  Current status of micro- and nano-structured optical fiber sensors , 2009 .

[27]  K S Lee,et al.  Fiber mode coupling in transmissive and reflective tilted fiber gratings. , 2000, Applied optics.

[28]  Hwa-Yaw Tam,et al.  Reflective tilted fiber Bragg grating refractometer based on strong cladding to core recoupling. , 2009, Optics express.

[29]  Gerald Meltz,et al.  Fiber grating evanescent-wave sensors , 1996, Optics & Photonics.

[30]  Eduardo Fontana,et al.  Thickness optimization of metal films for the development of surface-plasmon-based sensors for nonabsorbing media. , 2006, Applied optics.