Plasmonic Film with Diluted Nanostructures for Light Energy Harvesting and Sensing
Abstract
Harvesting the electromagnetic light field in spatially dispersed nanostructures and focusing the sensing events at those locations enables a gain of several orders of magnitude in sensitivity. It significantly reduces the amount of target material needed to produce a measurable signal. This paper establishes that, contrary to common belief, at very low target concentrations, increasing the periodicity of a nanoparticle array instead of diminishing it significantly lowers the limit of detection (LOD) of such structured plasmonic sensors. We demonstrate this numerically on a thin gold film covered by an array of 50 nm diameter nanocylinders with periodicity ranging from 400 to 3000 nm. We found a minimal capture target volume per surface unit of a few tens of nm 3 /μm 2 , which is an improvement of orders of magnitude from about 10 4 nm 3 /μm 2 necessary for obtaining the same minimal signal using a conventional propagative-based plasmon sensor, or about 10 3 nm 3 /μm 2 for a similar plasmonic biochip structure but with a typical 200-400 nm periodicity array range. Two key mechanisms are involved in achieving such a significant breakthrough. First, energy harvesting is enhanced by incorporating the underlying thin film, which enables the coupling of electromagnetic field energy into the localized plasmon mode of the nanoparticles. This harvesting coupling effect is shown to be limited by the film's plasmon propagation attenuation length and, consequently, its appropriate thickness. Second, target binding events must be precisely positioned in areas of enhanced optical field intensity.
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BibTeX
@article{vega2026plasmonic,
title = {{Plasmonic Film with Diluted Nanostructures for Light Energy Harvesting and Sensing}},
author = {Marlo Vega and Jean-François Bryche and Julien Moreau and Michael Canva},
journal = {ACS Applied Optical Materials},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1021/acsaom.5c00307},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05361070v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Plasmonic Film with Diluted Nanostructures for Light Energy Harvesting and Sensing
AU - Marlo Vega
AU - Jean-François Bryche
AU - Julien Moreau
AU - Michael Canva
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/07
JO - ACS Applied Optical Materials
DO - 10.1021/acsaom.5c00307
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05361070v1
AB - Harvesting the electromagnetic light field in spatially dispersed nanostructures and focusing the sensing events at those locations enables a gain of several orders of magnitude in sensitivity. It significantly reduces the amount of target material needed to produce a measurable signal. This paper establishes that, contrary to common belief, at very low target concentrations, increasing the periodicity of a nanoparticle array instead of diminishing it significantly lowers the limit of detection (LOD) of such structured plasmonic sensors. We demonstrate this numerically on a thin gold film covered by an array of 50 nm diameter nanocylinders with periodicity ranging from 400 to 3000 nm. We found a minimal capture target volume per surface unit of a few tens of nm 3 /μm 2 , which is an improvement of orders of magnitude from about 10 4 nm 3 /μm 2 necessary for obtaining the same minimal signal using a conventional propagative-based plasmon sensor, or about 10 3 nm 3 /μm 2 for a similar plasmonic biochip structure but with a typical 200-400 nm periodicity array range. Two key mechanisms are involved in achieving such a significant breakthrough. First, energy harvesting is enhanced by incorporating the underlying thin film, which enables the coupling of electromagnetic field energy into the localized plasmon mode of the nanoparticles. This harvesting coupling effect is shown to be limited by the film's plasmon propagation attenuation length and, consequently, its appropriate thickness. Second, target binding events must be precisely positioned in areas of enhanced optical field intensity.
SN - 2771-9855
ER -