Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensor Based On Exposed-Core Microstructured Optical Fiber Placed With A Silver Wire

We propose a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor based on the exposed-core microstructured optical fiber (EC-MOF) placed with a silver wire. The exposed section of the EC-MOF as a microfluidic channel is placed with the silver wire to avoid the metal coating and is then deposited with the analyte to avert the analyte filling. The proposed SPR sensor can support two polarized resonance peaks (x-polarized and y-polarized) caused by the silver wire. We theoretically investigate the sensitivities of the two polarized peaks both in the wavelength and amplitude interrogation methods and analyze the influences of the silver wire location on the sensing performances. The results show that the sensitivities of the two polarized peaks are similar and relatively stable for random locations of the silver wire. Moreover, the x-polarized peak provides a higher resolution for wavelength sensitivity and needs a shorter silver wire for the maximum amplitude sensitivity. This paper demonstrates that using the EC-MOF placed with the silver wire can simultaneously solve the metal coating and analyte filling problems in the other SPR sensors with no sacrifice in sensitivity.