Effect of Surface Roughness on the Performance of Optical SPR Sensor for Sucrose Detection: Fabrication, Characterization, and Simulation Study

Abstract

We propose a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor that makes use of titanium/silver thin film on indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass. The use of silver enhances the detection accuracy of the sensor, whereas ITO coated glass results in good sensitivity. Fabrication and characterization of the sensor chip, i.e., ITO/Ti/Ag have been carried out. The effect of surface roughness on the performance of the sensor has been systematically studied. This paper reveals that for rough surface, the sensor performance degrades significantly and there is a need for optimization of the thickness of the top layer for the best performance of the sensor. Both experimental and simulation study have been carried out to substantiate the results. © 2016 IEEE.