Surface-plasmon-resonance sensor based on three-hole microstructured optical fiber

We propose a novel surface-plasmon-resonance sensor design based on coating the holes of a three-hole microstructured optical fiber with a low-index dielectric layer on top of which a gold layer is deposited. The use of all three fiber holes and their relatively large size should facilitate the fabrication of the inclusions and the infiltration of the analyte. Our numerical results indicate that the optical loss of the Gaussian guided mode can be made very small by tuning the thickness of the dielectric layer and that the refractive-index resolution for aqueous analytes is 1 x 10(-4). (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.