A Tunable Plasmonic Refractive Index Sensor with Nanoring-Strip Graphene Arrays

Chunlian Cen; Hang Lin; Jing Huang; Cuiping Liang; Xifang Chen; Yongjian Tang; Zao Yi; Xin Ye; Jiangwei Liu; Yougen Yi; Shuyuan Xiao

doi:10.3390/s18124489

A Tunable Plasmonic Refractive Index Sensor with Nanoring-Strip Graphene Arrays

Sensors (Basel). 2018 Dec 18;18(12):4489. doi: 10.3390/s18124489.

Authors

Chunlian Cen^{1

2}, Hang Lin^{3

4}, Jing Huang^{5

6}, Cuiping Liang^{7

8}, Xifang Chen^{9

10}, Yongjian Tang^{11

12}, Zao Yi^{13

14}, Xin Ye¹⁵, Jiangwei Liu¹⁶, Yougen Yi¹⁷, Shuyuan Xiao¹⁸

Affiliations

¹ Joint Laboratory for Extreme Conditions Matter Properties, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China. cenchunlian@mails.swust.edu.cn.
² Research Center of Laser Fusion, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang 621010, China. cenchunlian@mails.swust.edu.cn.
³ Joint Laboratory for Extreme Conditions Matter Properties, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China. lh9711100@yeah.net.
⁴ Sichuan Civil-Military Integration Institute, Mianyang 621010, China. lh9711100@yeah.net.
⁵ Joint Laboratory for Extreme Conditions Matter Properties, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China. h2311320325@yeah.net.
⁶ Sichuan Civil-Military Integration Institute, Mianyang 621010, China. h2311320325@yeah.net.
⁷ Joint Laboratory for Extreme Conditions Matter Properties, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China. lcp144@yeah.net.
⁸ Sichuan Civil-Military Integration Institute, Mianyang 621010, China. lcp144@yeah.net.
⁹ Joint Laboratory for Extreme Conditions Matter Properties, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China. chenxifang1988@yeah.net.
¹⁰ Sichuan Civil-Military Integration Institute, Mianyang 621010, China. chenxifang1988@yeah.net.
¹¹ Joint Laboratory for Extreme Conditions Matter Properties, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China. Tangyongjian2000@sina.com.
¹² Sichuan Civil-Military Integration Institute, Mianyang 621010, China. Tangyongjian2000@sina.com.
¹³ Joint Laboratory for Extreme Conditions Matter Properties, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China. yizaomy@swust.edu.cn.
¹⁴ Sichuan Civil-Military Integration Institute, Mianyang 621010, China. yizaomy@swust.edu.cn.
¹⁵ Research Center of Laser Fusion, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang 621010, China. yexin@caep.cn.
¹⁶ School of Energy Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China. jiangweiliu@csu.edu.cn.
¹⁷ College of Physics and Electronics, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China. yougenyi@csu.edu.cn.
¹⁸ Institute for Advanced Study, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China. syxiao@hust.edu.cn.

Abstract

In the present study, we design a tunable plasmonic refractive index sensor with nanoring-strip graphene arrays. The calculations prove that the nanoring-strip have two transmission dips. By changing the strip length L of the present structure, we find that the nanoring-strip graphene arrays have a wide range of resonances (resonance wavelength increases from 17.73 μm to 28.15 μm). When changing the sensing medium refractive index n_med, the sensitivity of mode A and B can reach 2.97 μm/RIU and 5.20 μm/RIU. By changing the doping level n_g, we notice that the transmission characteristics can be tuned flexibly. Finally, the proposed sensor also shows good angle tolerance for both transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) polarizations. The proposed nanoring-strip graphene arrays along with the numerical results could open a new avenue to realize various tunable plasmon devices and have a great application prospect in biosensing, detection, and imaging.

Keywords: graphene; refractive sensing; surface plasmon resonance.