Comparison between sensitivities of phase and intensity detection in surface plasmon resonance.

We have experimentally and theoretically compared intensity and phase measurements of surface plasmon resonance, in order to check the widely claimed superiority of the phase method. Both experiment and theory show a slightly higher sensitivity for intensity detection. Simulations confirm that this result is generally true for a wide range of resonance conditions. The basic reason is that phase measurements must be performed by measuring light intensities in some way, and therefore both modes of operation are limited in similar ways by photon statistics. Sensitivity can only be improved by using larger light intensities.

[1]  R. H. Ritchie.  Plasma Losses by Fast Electrons in Thin Films , 1957 .

[2]  Petr I. Nikitin,et al.  Surface plasmon resonance interferometry for biological and chemical sensing , 1999 .

[3]  Petr I. Nikitin,et al.  Surface plasmon resonance interferometer for bio- and chemical-sensors , 1998 .

[4]  A. Otto.  Excitation of nonradiative surface plasma waves in silver by the method of frustrated total reflection , 1968 .

[5]  E N Ribak,et al.  Interference microscopy and Fourier fringe analysis applied to measuring the spatial refractive-index distribution. , 1993, Applied optics.

[6]  Petr I. Nikitin,et al.  Phase properties of a surface-plasmon resonance from the viewpoint of sensor applications , 1998 .

[7]  Yu Xinglong,et al.  Simulation and analysis of surface plasmon resonance biosensor based on phase detection , 2003 .

[8]  Liann-Be Chang,et al.  High-sensitivity sensor based on surface plasmon resonance and heterodyne interferometry , 2003 .

[9]  Petr I. Nikitin,et al.  Phase jumps and interferometric surface plasmon resonance imaging , 1999 .

[10]  James S. Wilkinson,et al.  Phase interrogation of an integrated optical SPR sensor , 2004 .

[11]  J. Greivenkamp,et al.  Phase Shifting Interferometers , 1992 .

[12]  B. Liedberg,et al.  Biosensing with surface plasmon resonance--how it all started. , 1995, Biosensors & bioelectronics.

[13]  S. J. Chen,et al.  Common-path phase-shift interferometry surface plasmon resonance imaging system. , 2005, Optics letters.

[14]  Chinlon Lin,et al.  Highly sensitive differential phase-sensitive surface plasmon resonance biosensor based on the Mach-Zehnder configuration. , 2004, Optics letters.

[15]  Ding Xiang,et al.  A surface plasmon resonance imaging interferometry for protein micro-array detection , 2005 .

[16]  Chien‐Ming Wu,et al.  Sensitivity-tunable optical sensors based on surface plasmon resonance and phase detection. , 2004, Optics express.

[17]  Petr I. Nikitin,et al.  Interferometer based on a surface-plasmon resonance for sensor applications , 1997 .

[18]  Günter Gauglitz,et al.  Surface plasmon resonance sensors: review , 1999 .

[19]  Petr I. Nikitin,et al.  Surface plasmon resonance interferometry for micro-array biosensing , 2000 .

[20]  J Guo,et al.  Optical phase-shift detection of surface plasmon resonance. , 1998, Applied optics.

[21]  Petr I. Nikitin,et al.  Dark-field surface plasmon resonance microscopy , 2000 .