Abstract

In this paper, an optical method of measuring the mass density of polarizable gases is proposed using a plasmonic refractive index nano-sensor. Plasmonic sensors can detect very small changes in the refracting index of arbitrary dielectric materials. However, attributing them to a specific application needs more elaboration of the material’s refractive index unit’s (RIU) relation with the introduced application. In a gaseous medium, the optical properties of molecules are related to their dipole moment polarizability. Hence, the theoretical index–density relation of Lorentz–Lorenz is applied in the proposed sensing mechanism to interpret changes in the gas’ refractive index and to changes in its density. The proposed plasmonic mass density sensor shows a sensitivity of $348.8 \; \text{nm}/(\text{gr}/\text{c}{{\text{m}}^{3}})$ for methane gas in the visible light region. This sensor can be integrated with photonic circuits for gas sensing purposes.

© 2022 Optica Publishing Group

Design of a high-performance graphene/SiO₂-Ag periodic grating/MoS₂ surface plasmon resonance sensor

XiaoLin Liu, Jin Liu, HaiMa Yang, Bo Huang, and GuoHui Zeng
Appl. Opt. 61(23) 6752-6760 (2022)

Tunable surface plasmon resonance sensor based on graphene-coated photonic crystal fiber in terahertz

Doudou Wang, Yue Zhang, Yihan Qi, Jiangkun Tian, Shuai Yue, and Tian Ma
Appl. Opt. 61(22) 6664-6670 (2022)

Tunable compact nanosensor based on Fano resonance in a plasmonic waveguide system

Xiaobin Ren, Kun Ren, and Yuanxue Cai
Appl. Opt. 56(31) H1-H9 (2017)

Double U-groove temperature and refractive index photonic crystal fiber sensor based on surface plasmon resonance

Qianhe Zhao, Jin Liu, Haima Yang, Haishan Liu, Guohui Zeng, Bo Huang, and Jun Jia
Appl. Opt. 61(24) 7225-7230 (2022)

Tunable liquid crystal core refractive index sensor based on surface plasmon resonance in gold nanofilm coated photonic crystal fiber

Zhenkai Fan, Shichao Chu, Jianye Qin, Yinping Zhang, and Haishan Liu
Appl. Opt. 61(10) 2675-2682 (2022)