IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 18, NO.
10, MAY 15, 2018
Fluoride Fiber-Optic SPR Sensor With Graphene
and NaF Layers: Analysis of Accuracy, Sensitivity,
and Specificity in Near Infrared
Anuj K. Sharma
Abstract— Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) based fluoride
fiber-optic sensor with graphene and sodium fluoride layers is
simulated and analyzed in near infrared (NIR) for detection of
alcohols. Through this paper, the fluoride fiber has been employed
for the first time in SPR sensing application. The proposed fiber
optic sensor is analyzed under angular interrogation method,
which is based on on-axis launching of monochromatic light
into the fiber core at varying angle followed by measuring the
power transmitted through the SPR probe region. The sensor’s
specificity towards alcohols plus a significantly increased sensi-
tivity and accuracy are ensured by a polythiophene layer. The
results indicate that longer NIR wavelength (λ) provides superior
sensing performance. Further, the proposed sensor’s performance
can be significantly enhanced by tuning the chemical potential
(μ) of graphene monolayer. In summary, monochromatic light
of λ = 1550 nm and 0.65 eV < μ < 0.70 eV provides
substantially high performance in terms of sensitivity, accuracy,
and figure of merit. The proposed sensor has the capability to
provide significantly better performance than previously-reported
SPR sensors.
Index Terms— Infrared sensors, optical fiber sensors, organic
compounds, plasmons, sensitivity and specificity.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HE surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing technique,
wherein the manipulation of electromagnetic (EM) radi-
ation for the excitation of plasmons and confinement of the
field generated to regions below diffraction limit have been
utilized for extensive applications in several chemical and
environmental processes [1], [2] due to its advantage of better
selectivity, non invasiveness, and higher sensitivity compared
to other existing techniques such as infrared spectroscopy
etc. [3]. Interestingly, it can be noted that fiber optic sensors
provide several features, such as passivity and immunity to EM
interferences [4], remote sensing applications, multiplexing
abilities, low-cost probe design, and portability [5] etc.
The above-mentioned features of fiber-optic sensor probe
are hugely advantageous while sensing different chemical
compounds with minimal interference with the environment.
Manuscript received February 17, 2018; accepted March 14, 2018. Date of
publication March 22, 2018; date of current version April 23, 2018. The work
of A. Dominic was supported by MHRD (India) in the form of assistantship.
The associate editor coordinating the review of this paper and approv-
ing it for publication was Prof. Bhaskar Choubey. (Corresponding author:
Anuj K. Sharma.)
A. K. Sharma is with the Department of Applied Sciences, Physics
Division, National Institute of Technology Delhi, Delhi 110040, India (e-mail:
anujsharma@nitdelhi.ac.in).
A. Dominic is with the Department of Electronics and Communication
Engineering, National Institute of Technology Delhi, Delhi 110040, India.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2018.2818197
1558-1748 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
4053
and Anumol Dominic
Ethanol and methanol are two important organic compounds
used for different purposes and their detection has been an
area of considerable interest for applications in several fields,
ranging from environment to food to chemical industries [4].
The detection of organic compounds (e.g., methanol and
ethanol) should be carried out in infrared (IR) because they
have their characteristic absorption bands in IR enabling a
label-free and real time sensing procedure [6]. In addition,
several other key benefits are achievable in IR such as
enhanced sensitivity [7], lower power requirement [8], and
deeper penetration depth [7] etc.
For designing an SPR-based sensor probe in near-IR (NIR),
appropriate materials (i.e., glass substrate, metal, and dielectric
layers) need to be selected for optimal and stable sensing per-
formance. Taking this into consideration, heavy metal fluoride
glasses have been recognized to provide better performance
in NIR due to their excellent optical properties such as low
mean dispersion [9], low Rayleigh scattering [9], smaller
birefringence [10], lesser thermal dependence of optical prop-
erties [10], low optical non-linearity, and broad transmission
window [9]–[11]. It is worth-mentioning that in NIR wave-
length region, fiber materials other than silica are yet to
be explored in detail. In particular, fluoride fibers, in view
of above-mentioned exceptional optical properties, should be
exploited in SPR-based chemical- and bio-sensing. However,
the reliability of the fiber chosen also depends on protecting
it against moisture and reducing the surface crystallization
effects of the fluoride glass [11]. The solution to these prob-
lems is to select a fluoride glass with high crystallization
stability [9], e.g., ZBLAN glass, as the material for the fiber
core and coat it with protective layers to prevent corrosion.
Further, fluoride fibers exhibit slightly higher thermal expan-
sion characteristics compared to conventional silica fibers [9].
However, this issue can be negated by keeping the temperature
unchanged (preferably near room temperature).
Further, among the generally used noble metals, silver (Ag)
exhibits a better performance owing to its superior detection
accuracy in terms of SPR-based detection. However, Ag gets
oxidized very rapidly, and therefore, causes chemical instabil-
ity [12]. So, a due protection is required in order to use Ag
in SPR-based detection of organic compounds.
A recent attraction among researchers has been the use
of graphene in design of various electronic and photonic
devices [13]. Graphene, with its phenomenal optical and chem-
ical properties such as impermeability, chemical stability, and
compatibility [14], [15], possesses an immense capability to
4054
improve the performance of the SPR sensor. Further, different
graphene properties, e.g., multilayer stacking and chemical
potential, have recently been investigated to improve the SPR
sensor’s performance [14], [16].
In the present work, a fluoride fiber-optic SPR sensor
structure comprising of ‘ZBLAN optical fiber – sodium fluo-
ride (NaF) layer - Ag layer- graphene layer’ for detection of
alcohols (methanol and ethanol) has been simulated and ana-
lyzed. It has been studied earlier that polythiophene (PT) films
can be used for interfacing with alcohols to achieve the feature
of specificity [3]. In this context, the influence of using a PT
layer on the sensor’s performance has also been examined.
Further, the sensor structure has been analyzed at different NIR
wavelengths. Furthermore, the effect of graphene’s chemical
potential on fiber optic sensor probe has been studied at longer
NIR wavelength.
II. T HEORETICAL F RAMEWORK
The SPR condition is achieved at a metal-dielectric interface
when the following equation is satisfied:
   work [18].
2π 2π εm εs
n p si nθ S P R = r eal (1)
λ λ εm + εs
In eq. (1), np is the refractive index (RI) of the light coupling
substrate, εs and εm , respectively, are the dielectric constants
of the analyte and metal, λ is the wavelength of incident light,
and θSPR is the angle of resonance.
In a fiber-optic sensor, the analyte property is detected
by measuring the variation in optical power transmitted after
getting plasmonically modulated. In the present study, a mono-
chromatic beam of light is considered for evaluation and the
angle with which the light beam is launched into the fiber is
varied (Fig. 1). Such sort of arrangement is known as selective
ray launching.
In order to obtain the normalized reflection coefficient (R)
for p-polarized incident light, the transfer matrix method
for multilayer system is used [17]. The (normalized) power
transmitted by the SPR region (of length L) can be calculated
as:
P(θ ) = R(θ ) Nre f (θ) (2)
In above equation, Nref (θ ) = L/(D tan θ ) is the number of
reflections undergone by the light ray propagating at an angle
θ (as shown in Fig. 1), where D is the fiber core diameter.
Further, the power loss (in dB) with reference to maximum
normalized power(= 1) can be obtained using:
 
1
Power Loss(i n d B) = 10log10 (3)
P(θ )
At the point where SPR occurs (i.e., θ = θSPR ), the loss
in transmitted power will be maximum and a change in the
analyte RI leads to a shift in θSPR (as shown in fig. 1). This
concept of angular interrogation (Power loss vs. θ ) employed
in fiber optic sensors can be considered a reliable way of
carrying out the analyte detection.
In the following sections, the different components of the
proposed SPR sensor are discussed:
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 18, NO. 10, MAY 15, 2018
Fig. 1. Schematic of ‘ZBLAN glass core – NaF layer - Ag layer - graphene
layer’ configuration based fiber-optic SPR sensor. The laser source is fixed on
a rotary stage in order to ‘on-axis’ launch the light into the fiber core. The
SPR sensing region is the multilayered one with a length ‘L’ while ‘D’ is
the fiber core diameter. The detection mechanism consists of a photodetector
connected with the computation system that displays the angular spectrum of
power loss occurred in the SPR sensing region. At resonance (i.e., θ = θSPR ),
the power loss spectrum shows a sharp peak, which shifts to some other angle
with a change in analyte RI. The corresponding SPR shift is denoted as δθSPR .
A. Layer 1: ZBLAN Fiber Core
Taking into consideration the properties mentioned ear-
lier, ZBLAN glass (ZrF455.8BaF214.4 LaF25.2 AlF33.8 NaF20.2 )
is considered as fiber core material for the present study. The
RI of ZBLAN is calculated using data from an earlier-reported
B. Layer 2: NaF Film
In order to carry out the sensing of as wide range of
analyte RI values as possible, the range of allowed values
of propagating angle (θ ) should be as large as possible.
The above  range of θ is decided by the numerical aperture
(NA = n 2core − n 2out er ), where ncore and nouter are the RI
values of fiber core and outer (clad) media, respectively. The
usual clad media have their RI values quite close to core RI,
therefore, NA and the corresponding θ -range cannot be very
large. In this view, it is envisaged that the clad is removed from
that region and is replaced with a dielectric layer of smaller
nouter so that NA is sufficiently large. This can be realized by
using NaF layer atop the fiber core. The typical RI values of
NaF vary between 1.3229 and 1.3215 for the corresponding
NIR wavelength variation between, respectively, 780 nm and
980 nm [19], which leads to a NA in the vicinity of 0.65 with
ZBLAN fiber core. The above estimation leads to an allowed
θ -range of nearly 630 to 900 and the corresponding α-range
of 00 to 400 . Since, the role of this layer is only to increase the
NA, therefore, an ultrathin layer (5 nm) of NaF will suffice.
Ultrathin NaF layer has found applications in other photonic
devices such as organic LEDs [20].
C. Layer 3: Ag Film
A thin layer of Ag (45 nm thickness) is coated over the
NaF layer. The RI of Ag layer at different wavelengths is
calculated using the Lorentz-Drude model that considers both
interband and intraband effects on the metal dielectric function
in NIR [21].
D. Layer 4: Graphene Monolayer
According to Kubo formalism, the surface conductivity
(σs ) of graphene depends on λ, chemical potential (μ),
and temperature (T) [22]. The net surface conductivity is
SHARMA AND DOMINIC: FLUORIDE FIBER-OPTIC SPR SENSOR WITH GRAPHENE AND NaF LAYERS
the sum of two components: interband (σinter ) and intraband
(σintra ) career transition contributions. Further, from time-
harmonic Maxwell equations, the relation between graphene’s
permittivity (ε) and volume conductivity (σv ) can be repre-
sented as:
ε (ω) = εr − i (σ v (ω) /ω) (4)
It should be noted that σv = σs /dGr (where dGr is graphene
monolayer thickness, i.e., 0.34 nm). If conductivity is complex
(i.e., σv = σr + i σi ), the permittivity is given as:
ε (ω) = εr + (σi (ω) /ω) − i (σr (ω) /ω) (5)
The above expression indicates that a negative σi leads
 to
a negative real part of permittivity when εr + σi ω(ω) < 0,
and the graphene layer behaves as a thin metal layer sup-
porting surface plasmon waves (SPW), which are transverse
magnetic (TM) in nature. In fact, the calculations show
that graphene’s volume conductivity has a significantly large
value and due to this reason, εr can be ignored and the
condition for graphene to support SPW is σi (ω) < 0 [22].
Certainly, at a constant T (e.g., room temperature), the above
condition depends on the combination of λ and μ as per
Kubo formula. For instance, as per conductivity calculations
in view of above condition (σi (ω) < 0), the value of μ
needs to be greater than 0.5 eV for SPW to exist at graphene
surface at λ = 1550 nm [22], [23]. With any variation in λ,
different values of μ will support SPW in graphene leading
to field enhancement at metal-graphene interface [22], [23].
Additionally, graphene layer acts as a protective coating atop
the Ag layer to prevent oxidation issues [14]. The wavelength
dependent RI of graphene can be calculated using the data
reported earlier [26], [27].
E. Layer 5: Analyte-Specific Buffer Layer
In order to enhance the selectivity/specificity of the sensor,
an ultrathin buffer layer may be deposited on top of the
graphene layer because this buffer layer remains in the direct
contact of analyte. For the present study, the RI of the PT
layer (e.g., 7 nm thick), which is ethanol/methanol specific
and yields greater variation in RI when brought in contact with
different alcohols, has been adopted from an earlier work [3].
F. Layer 6: Analyte
For the present analysis, the analyte samples are considered
to be pure methanol and ethanol at room temperatures. Their
concerned dispersions in a broad spectral region can be taken
into account by considering their RI variation [28], [29].
G. Sensor Performance Evaluation
For the present study, the performance parameter employed
is figure of merit (FOM), which can be calculated using:
δθ S P R 1
FOM = x (6)
δn s FW H M
Here, δns is the difference between RI of methanol and
ethanol samples and δθSPR is the corresponding shift in peak
4055
Fig. 2. Simulated curves for power loss spectra of ethanol and methanol at
λ = 785 nm corresponding to fiber optic SPR sensor (a) without PT layer,
and (b) with PT layer. The corresponding values of θSPR , FWHM and FOM
(with ethanol as analyte and methanol as reference) are also indicated. The
dielectric constant of PT layer is taken as 2.25 + 0.03i [3] and its thickness
is 7 nm. For a clear comparison, both the figures (a and b) correspond to
same scale on horizontal as well as vertical scales. At λ = 785 nm, δns =
nethanol −nmethanol = 0.0341 RIU. The value of L/D is taken as 25, which can
be achieved with any feasible combination of L and D, e.g., L = 1 cm and
D = 400 μm.
power loss angle. FWHM is the angular width of power
loss spectrum. The unit of FOM is RIU−1 from Eq. (6).
Importantly, the FOM is a product of two individual perfor-
mance parameters, i.e., detection sensitivity (SD = δθδnS Ps R ) and
detection accuracy (AD = 1/FWHM). From eq. (6), the FOM,
SD , and AD should be as large as possible for reliable sensing.
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
A. Role of PT Layer
Figure 2 depicts the simulated power loss spectra at λ =
785 nm for ethanol (RI = 1.3575) and methanol (RI = 1.3234)
nm obtained with the fiber optic SPR sensor design for (a)
without PT layer, and (b) with PT layer. A couple of points
can be readily observed from the above plots and the corre-
sponding tables therein. First, there is a certain improvement in
the sensor’s performance due to introduction of PT layer. The
value of δθSPR increases from 4.4300 to 4.5200, i.e., the value
of SD increases from 129.9240/RIU to 132.5640/RIU when PT
layer is employed. Moreover, PT layer causes the FWHM of
analyte’s power loss curve to decrease from 0.8890 to 0.8390
leading to an increase in AD value from 1.125/0 to 1.191/0.
A possible reason is that the real part of PT layer’s RI assists in
bringing greater shift in resonance condition (as the effective
index of the multilayered structure increases), which leads to
increase in δθSPR and, hence, in SD . Further, its imaginary part
increases the damping of surface plasmons by the multilayered
structure, which is apparent in figure 2(b) that the power loss is
significantly greater for both ethanol and methanol compared
with the counterparts shown in figure 2(a).
The above two effects are evident in greater values of
SD and AD , as mentioned above. Certainly, FOM (which is
a product of SD and AD ) is also larger for the case when
PT layer is employed. As denoted in the tables incorporated
in figure 2, the FOM increases from 146.146 RIU−1 to 158.002
RIU−1 . The above analysis concludes that the utilization of PT
layer effectively brings a significant improvement in all the
performance parameters, in addition to its specificity, of the
proposed fiber optic SPR sensor.
4056
Fig. 3. Simulated variation of FOM with wavelength of light source. The
points (+) indicate the wavelength of some commercially available laser
diodes. The inset shows the corresponding variations of detection sensitivity
and detection accuracy with wavelength.
However, the above analysis is carried out only for a single
NIR wavelength (λ = 785 nm), and it is imperative to analyze
the influence of NIR wavelength on the sensor’s performance.
B. Effect of NIR Wavelength
Figure 3 represents the variation of proposed sensor’s FOM
with λ corresponding to the NIR spectral range in which
a number of monochromatic laser diodes are commercially
available.
The above plot shows that the FOM improves signifi-
cantly with an increase in wavelength. Numerically, the FOM
improves from 144.310 RIU−1 to 325.011 RIU−1 when λ
is increased from 780 nm to 980 nm. It indicates towards
nearly 125% enhancement in FOM for a corresponding
increase of 200 nm in light wavelength. The above out-
come corroborates another previously reported work regard-
ing enhanced plasmonic sensing performance at longer NIR
wavelength [30].
At this point, it is important to analyze how the light
wavelength individually affects the sensitivity and accuracy
of the proposed sensor. The above variation of SD and AD
with λ is shown in the inset of figure 3, which clearly
indicates a trade-off between SD and AD . The sensitivity
decreases whereas accuracy increases for longer wavelength.
Numerically, SD decays from 130.6010/RIU for λ = 780 nm
to 113.6440/RIU for λ = 980 nm, which amounts to nearly
13% decrease in SD for a corresponding change of 200 nm
in λ. On the other hand, AD increases from 1.105/0 for
λ = 780 nm to 2.786/0 for λ = 980 nm, i.e., nearly 152%
increase in AD for a corresponding change of 200 nm in
λ. Main reason behind this effect is that at shorter wave-
lengths, the multilayered plasmonic structure becomes highly
lossy (due to much greater imaginary part of its effective
index) mainly owing to increased lossy behavior of metal
layer [30]. Since, the magnitude of increase in AD is much
larger than the decay in SD , therefore, the combined effect of
the above opposite spectral variations of SD and AD results
in nearly 125% increase in FOM within the above λ-range
(i.e., 780-980 nm).
In above context, it is worth-mentioning that even though
shorter wavelength provides larger sensitivity of a plasmonic
sensor, it is equally important to ensure greater accuracy
(i.e., as small measurement error as possible) that is achievable
with longer wavelength (as discussed above). Due to trade-off
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 18, NO. 10, MAY 15, 2018
Fig. 4. Simulated variation of FOM with chemical potential (μ) of graphene
monolayer (0.34 nm thick) at λ = 1550 nm. The right inset shows the
corresponding simulated variation of sensitivity and accuracy with chemical
potential at λ = 1550 nm. The left inset shows the simulated variation of
FOM with chemical potential at λ = 1550 nm for ZBLAN prism based
sensor probe.
between SD and AD , it may not be possible to clearly get
an optimized value of wavelength. Nevertheless, a practical
solution can be found by setting a performance criterion
related to minimum requisite values of SD and AD leading
to an appropriate selection of wavelength. In this context,
it is important to mention that in addition to significantly
better overall sensing performance (i.e., FOM), longer NIR
wavelength also provides superior suitability for biosample
detection due to much smaller photodamage [7], [31] and
reduced Rayleigh scattering (∝ 1/λ4 ). Thus, it can be con-
cluded that longer NIR wavelength source should be used in
the proposed fiber optic SPR sensor probe for detection of
organic compounds. Here, it should also be noted that above
spectral variation of FOM (as shown in figure 3) has been
simulated without PT layer (due to lack of dispersion data
for PT at several wavelengths). However, it is expected from
figure 2 and the related discussion that employing the PT will
further increase the FOM at longer wavelengths.
C. Effect of Graphene’s Chemical Potential at Longer
NIR Wavelength
Following the above observation regarding using longer NIR
wavelength, the proposed fiber optic SPR sensor is further
simulated at λ = 1550 nm and the corresponding FOM is
obtained as 443.163 RIU−1 . It means that there is nearly 240%
increase in FOM at λ = 1550 nm compared with the FOM at
λ = 780 nm. However, the wavelength cannot be increased
beyond a certain level because of corresponding decay in
sensitivity (as discussed in previous section). At this point, it
becomes essential to explore the role of graphene properties in
order to further enhance the sensor’s performance. Variation
in graphene’s chemical potential (μ) is a crucial parameter
that affects its complex RI due to corresponding variations in
charge career concentrations [32]. Recently, the influence of
graphene’s chemical potential on fluoride prism-based SPR
sensor probe’s performance has been studied in NIR [16].
Fig. 4 depicts the variation of FOM of proposed fiber-optic
SPR sensor probe with μ at λ = 1550 nm.
It is clear from Fig. 4 that the sensor’s FOM varies signif-
icantly with chemical potential. FOM is 443.163 RIU−1 at
μ = 0 eV and it increases steadily until it becomes
470.345 RIU−1 at μ = 0.41 eV. Thereafter, it decreases
sharply until it encounters a minimum value of 345.460 RIU−1
SHARMA AND DOMINIC: FLUORIDE FIBER-OPTIC SPR SENSOR WITH GRAPHENE AND NaF LAYERS 4057

at μ = 0.49 eV. For μ > 0.49 eV, the FOM keeps on TABLE I
increasing until it reaches its peak value of 510.994 RIU−1 C OMPARISON OF SPR S ENSING P ERFORMANCE
at μ = 1.0 eV. It clearly indicates that tuning the chemical
potential to adequate levels can bring desirable enhancement
in the sensor’s FOM. The chemical potential of graphene can
be tuned mainly either by external gate voltage or by chemical
doping methods [33]. For the present study, we consider
that the chemical potential of graphene layer is not being
actively tuned. Since, chemical doping can permanently tune
graphene for long-term device application assuming that once
graphene is chemically prepared and doped (typical value of μ
around 0.6 eV), it is isolated from the environment [22], [23],
therefore, we have considered that different chemically doped
graphene monolayers are being individually used for sensor
simulation. However, it becomes more complicated to achieve
greater values of μ (e.g., 1 eV). This difficulty may be
significantly avoided by choosing the value of μ around
0.65 - 0.70 eV that provides a significantly large FOM of
nearly 500 - 504 RIU−1 , which is extremely close to the
peak FOM (i.e., 510.994 RIU−1 corresponding to μ = 1 eV)
at λ = 1550 nm. In view of above discussion about the
permanent tuning of μ through chemical doping, it is expected
that the above range of μ (i.e., 0.65 - 0.70 eV) may be achieved
by chemical doping. Nevertheless, as suggested by a previous
study that if graphene is sufficiently doped to support SPW
near λ = 1550 nm, the external electric and magnetic fields
can still be used for dynamic (active) tuning [24], which is
an important point if further higher values of μ are required.
Combining two or more doping methods (e.g., external gate
voltage and chemical/molecular doping) may also be explored, and, therefore, greater FOM than prism-based probe. The
if needed. above comparison further strengthens the utility of proposed
The right inset of figure 4 shows the corresponding variation fiber-optic SPR sensor probe over the prism-based one.
of SD and AD with μ at λ = 1550 nm. As is visible, there Going further, the following table I shows the comparison
is hardly any variation in SD with μ but the AD component of the proposed sensor’s FOM with a few important works on
shows a significant variation, which effectively commands the SPR sensor [35]–[41].
whole variation of FOM with μ. It signifies that the above The above table indicates that the proposed fiber optic SPR
range of μ (i.e., 0.65 - 0.70 eV) is able to provide nearly sensor for alcohol detection has the capability of providing
constant sensitivity (around 1000/RIU, which is sufficiently greater FOM compared with other plasmonic sensor designs.
large in view of the angular resolution of 0.0010 available
with present instruments [34]), high accuracy (around 5 /0 ), IV. C ONCLUSION
as well as large FOM (around 500 RIU−1 ) extremely close to ZBLAN fluoride fiber optic SPR sensor with graphene
maximum possible FOM. and NaF layers has been studied in NIR for detection of
alcohols. The simulation results indicate that the fiber-optic
probe provides much better sensing performance compared
D. Sensing Performance Comparison with its prism-based counterpart. The introduction of alcohol-
The left inset of figure 4 shows the simulated variation specific PT layer leads not only to enhanced sensing perfor-
of FOM with μ at λ = 1550 nm for ZBLAN prism based mance but also adds to the specificity of the sensor. It is
SPR sensor probe with Ag layer (45 nm) and graphene found that laser sources of longer NIR wavelength should be
monolayer (0.34 nm). The corresponding SPR curve consists used as they lead to greater FOM of the sensor. However,
of the variation of reflection coefficient (R) with θ , while the sensitivity may be slightly smaller for longer wavelength
FOM is defined as same as in Eq. (6). The objective of but the same can be compensated with much greater accuracy.
showing this variation is to appreciate the comparison between The chemical potential (μ) of graphene can be exploited as
prism-based and the proposed fiber-optic SPR sensor probes. a crucial parameter to improve the sensor’s performance at
Clearly, the FOM achievable with the fiber-optic probe is longer NIR wavelength. At λ = 1550 nm, an exceptionally
much better (nearly 2.5 times greater) compared with the balanced set of performance parameters (sensitivity, accuracy,
prism-based probe. The main reason is that due to multiple and FOM) can be achieved for 0.65 eV < μ < 0.7 eV.
reflections, the fiber-optic probe is able to cause more change The proposed sensor has the capability to provide significantly
in output signal (i.e., power loss) leading to smaller FWHM better performance than previously-reported SPR sensors.
4058
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Anuj K. Sharma received the master’s degree in
physics from the Indian Institute of Technology
Roorkee in 2001 and the Ph.D. degree from the
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 2006. From
2007 to 2008, he was an Alexander von Hum-
boldt Research Fellow with the Friedrich-Schiller
University of Jena, Germany. In 2008, he joined
ASML Netherlands B.V., Veldhoven, The Nether-
lands, as a Technical Analyst. He is currently an
Assistant Professor of Physics with the National
Institute of Technology Delhi, India. He has pub-
lished more than 45 research articles in different international journals
of repute. He has also contributed a chapter entitled “Plasmonics-based
fiber optic sensors” in the book “Fiber Optic Sensors: Current Sta-
tus and Future Possibilities” edited by I. R. Matias, S. Ikezawa, and
J. Corres and published by Springer (Switzerland) in 2017. He has reviewed
and adjudicated several research articles for international journals. His areas of
research are photonic sensors, plasmonics, fiber optics, nanophotonics, semi-
conductor lithography, optical device modeling, biophotonics, and technology
management.
Anumol Dominic received the B.Tech. degree in
ECE from the College of Engineering, Chengannur,
India. She is currently pursuing the M.Tech. degree
in ECE with the National Institute of Technology
Delhi, India. Her research interests include photonic
sensors, optical device modeling, and graphene plas-
monics.