Improvement of Sensor Glass Substrates for Surface Plasmon Resonance Devices

Possibility of increasing the sensitivity of sensors based on surface plasmon resonance phenomenon by electron beam processing of glass sensor substrates is shown. This is a consequence of the reduction of losses in the propagation of surface plasmons along the metal-air boundary. In this case the thickness of heterointerface gold-air was lowered from 3.26 down to 1.37 nm. Glass substrates treatment increased sensitivity by 1.7 times from 1.425 deg
^-1
up to 2.396 deg
^-1
. It was ascertained using X-ray reflectometry that the film density increased from 17.2 up to 19.3 g/cm
³
and reached the value typical for the bulk gold. As a consequence of resonance characteristic shift to the side of lower angles, the range of measurements is additionally widened by 0.37 deg, which extends the range of measurement of refractive indices. The results of the study can be applied to develop new devices based on the phenomenon of surface plasmon resonance.