Waseem A.

AL Luhahybi PHY 600 Surface Plasmon Resonance

Abstract In this report, surface plasmon resonance has been generally investigated. The Total Internal Reflection has been explained. A broad idea of the theory of SPR has been given. The several methods of excitation of SPR have been elaborated. Finally, the characteristics of SPR curve have been explained.

1) Introduction Surface plasmons are collective oscillation of electron density waves in an interface between metal-dielectric medium with an opposite sign of dielectric constant. Surface plasmons resonance can be excited by a p-polarized light using attenuated total reflection method. Surface plasmon resonance appears as a sharp minimum-almost zero- in the intensity of reflected light. The thickness of metal thin film has great impact on the excitation of Surface plasmon resonance. 2) Total Internal Reflection(TIR) According to Snells law when a light beam propagating into a medium with higher refractive index ( ) to a medium with lower refractive index ( ) undergo to refraction.

When the angle of the reflected light is equal to 90, the angle of incident light is called critical angle ( ). Total internal reflection occurs when the incident angle ( ) is larger than critical angle ( ). Therefore, all the light will totally be reflected and there is no refraction light. This is called Total Internal Reflection (TIR). (See Figure1) 3) Evanescent wave The solution of Maxwells equation involves a transmitted wave into the metal thin film (the second medium). This wave propagates towards the interface in a wavelength pattern. In

Waseem A. AL Luhahybi PHY 600 Surface Plasmon Resonance

addition, this wave shows an exponential decay pattern towards the z direction. This wave is called evanescent wave. 4) Attenuated Total Reflection If a medium ( ) has a certain thickness (d), the energy of the light will be absorbed by the

medium. As a consequence the reflectance (R) is less than 1. In addition, if we scan the angle of incidence of light onto a metal film, then at a certain angle the reflected light intensity will go sharply to almost zero, indicating resonant coupling to surface plasmons. This phenomenon is called Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR) and this angle is called Attenuated Total Reflection Angle. 5) Theory The light that is used in the excitation of surface plasmon resonance is P-polarized or TMmode. An obvious method to excite the surface plasmon is using the prism coupling technique. In this method, the component of the incident wave vector ( ) is given by the following expression:

Where

is refractive index of prism, (

) is the Attenuated total reflection angle (SPR

angle) and ( ) is the wavelength of the polarized light. On other hand, the wave vector of plasmon mode ( ) is given by the following expression:

Where (

) is the dielectric constant for metal thin film and ( ) is the dielectric constant of

dielectric medium. A decrease in the intensity of the reflected light occurs denoting the surface plasmon resonance when the incident wave vector ( ) is equal to the wave vector of plasmon ( ) mode. The intensity of reflectance minimum that results from plasmon resonance is caused

Waseem A. AL Luhahybi PHY 600 Surface Plasmon Resonance

by the phase difference of the surface plasmon mode relative to the incident photon field, is . As a result, a destructive interference between the reflected photon and the

photon that emitted by the excited plasmon is occurred. Furthermore, the minimum intensity of the reflected light is show as a curve which called SPR curve (figure#). The reflectance of a structure comprising prism coated with a metal and a dielectric media on the metal surface is calculated by Fresnels relations. The Fresnels reflection coefficient for p-polarized light traveling from prism medium and metal film is given by the following expression:

And Where is the angle of incidence, , and are the waver vectors of the prism and the thin

metal respectively and

is the dielectric constant of the prism and the thin metal.

6) Principal configurations to achieve plasmon excitation by light: There are two main configurations to achieve plasmon excitation by light, Otto Configuration and Kretschmann configuration. In these two configurations, the plasmon can be excited by p-polarized light undergoing total internal reflection (TIR) on the prism surface. A brief explanation about these three is shown below:

a) Otto configuration: In Otto configuration, the metal surface ( ) is separated from the medium ( ) by an additional dielectric layer such as air, water, or polymer which its dielectric constant ( ) must be less than the dielectric medium ( ). The surface plasmon resonance occurs at metalm in order for the

dielectric interface. The width of the (air, water) slit should be about

excitation to be occurred. For this reason, the Otto method has not been used widely in surface plasmon resonance sensing (see figure2).

Waseem A. AL Luhahybi PHY 600 Surface Plasmon Resonance

b) Kretschmann configuration: In this configuration, the metal thin film is formed on the substrate ( ). It acts as the spacer. After a particular thickness, the evanescent wave may couple the surface plasmon on the opposite metal surface. This configuration is widely explored (see figure3).

7) Characteristic of surface plasmon curve As its shown in this paper, the intensity of reflected light shown as a curve that know as a surface plasmon resonance curve. There are three different areas in the Surface plasmon resonance curve that can determine the shape of the curve. The first area is the edge of total internal reflection. The position of this area depends only on the difference in the dielectric constant of prism and the cover medium which either water or air. The value is known as critical angle and it is fixed for a given system. Second factor that may have great impact on determining the curve is the resonance angle. This is quantity that is needed to be determined. The angle shift depends on the real part of dielectric constant of the metal and the dielectric constant of the cover medium (air/water). However, the surface plasmon resonance dip angle is determined by the thickness of metal layer. The dip must always not reach zero line. The closer this thickness is to 50nm the deeper the dip angle will be. The last factor that shapes the surface plasmon curve is the full width at half maximum. This depends solely on the imaginary part of the dielectric constant of the metal. The smaller value, the sharper curve is obtained. This is why silver plasmons are much narrower, sharper than gold plasmons.(figure 4) References: Mehan, N., gupta, V., Sreenivas, K., & Mansingh, A. (2005). Surface plasmon resonance based refractive index sensor for liquids. Indian Journal of Pure& Applied Physics, 43, 854-858. How does surface plasmon resonance work?. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://www.bionavis.com/technology/spr/. Myzaka, D. (2008). Handbook of surface plasmon resonance. (pp. 15-33). Cambridge,UK: The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Waseem A. AL Luhahybi PHY 600 Surface Plasmon Resonance

Sarid, D., & Challener, W. (2010). Modern introduction to surface plasmons. Cambridge,UK: Cambridge press.

Waseem A. AL Luhahybi PHY 600 Surface Plasmon Resonance

List of figures

Figure (1): Total Internal reflection

Waseem A. AL Luhahybi PHY 600 Surface Plasmon Resonance

Figure (2): Otto configuration

Figure (3): Kertschmann configuration

Waseem A. AL Luhahybi PHY 600 Surface Plasmon Resonance

Figure (4): SPR curve