Surface plasmon resonance on a recordable compact disk

The surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect on noble metal surfaces has been explored by several investigators for the development of chemical and biological sensors as well as for the design of optical devices for other applications. The effect can be observed using prism couplers, diffraction gratings and specially configured optical fibers. In an attempt to seek for a new configuration that minimizes fabrication costs of the SPR supporting media in conjunction with the design of a new format suitable for large scale chemical and biological sensing, we have investigated the feasibility of a commercially available, gold-type, recordable compact disk (CD-R) for observation of the SPR phenomenon. In this paper we report experimental and theoretical results of this investigation.