Performance study of surface plasmon resonance and lossy mode resonance based fiber optic sensors utilizing silver and indium oxide layers: An experimental investigation

This study presents here the experimental investigations on a surface plasmon resonance (SPR)/lossy mode resonance (LMR) based fiber optic sensors coated with silver and indium oxide layers. Different sensing probes have been fabricated by coating (i) a single layer of indium oxide, (ii) a single layer of silver and (iii) a double layer of indium oxide and silver (with different thicknesses) symmetrically onto to the bare core of silica fiber. The sensitivity of these fiber optic sensing probes towards surrounding region refractive index variations are determined using different concentrations of sucrose solutions. It was found that sensor probe fabricated with coating of 100 nm thickness of indium oxide was two times more sensitive than the conventionally used fiber optic sensing probe coated with only silver layer. The sensitivity of a double layer coated fiber optic sensor with various thicknesses of indium oxide and silver layers is in between the two extremes of the sensitivities. This study will find suitable applications in the field of chemical and biochemical sensing. The drawbacks of silver coatings and the advantages of LMR supporting indium oxide have also been discussed.