Expression of Concern: Design considerations for nanoshell-based sensors

We study the effect of variability on the robustness of nanoshell based sensors. On the one hand, nanoshells with higher aspect ratios have better quality factors, but their resonance wavelength is more prone to variability than that of nanoshells with lower aspect ratios. Our study takes into account the effect of aspect ratio on both the resonance wavelength and the quality factor and explore design methods for robust nanoshell-based sensors with as high a quality factor as possible.