A plasmonic refractive index sensor based on a MIM waveguide with a side-coupled nanodisk resonator

Based on a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguide with a side-coupled nanodisk cavity, the sensor using the surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) refractive index is investigated and studied numerically. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is used to simulate the performance of the sensor. The numerical simulation result indicates that all the resonance wavelengths in the transmission characteristic of the structure have a linear relationship with the refractive index of the cavity. Furthermore, the sensitivities of the sensor in this paper for the refractive index can be achieved as high as 1320 nm RIU for the mode1, 812.5 nm RIU for the mode2, 600 nm RIU for the mode3, respectively. Besides, the influences of the structural parameters on the transmission characteristic and the sensing characteristic are also studied in detail by the FDTD method. The sensor with compact and simple structure not only can be used to measure the temperature based on the linear relation between the refractive index and temperature, but also has many potential applications in optical networks on chip and On-chip sensor networks.