Simulated Study of High-Sensitivity Gas Sensor with a Metal-PhC Nanocavity via Tamm Plasmon Polaritons

Abstract

An optical configuration was designed and simulated with a metal-photonic crystal (PhC) nanocavity, which had high sensitivity on gas detection. The simulated results shows that this configuration can generate a strong photonic localization through exciting Tamm plasmon polaritons. The strong photonic localization highly increases the sensitivity of gas detection. Furthermore, this configuration can be tuned to sense gases at different conditions through an adjustment of the detection light wavelength, the period number of photonic crystal and the thickness of the gas cavity. The sensing routes to pressure variations of air were revealed. The simulation results showed that the detection precision of the proposed device for gas pressure could reach 0.0004 atm.

Keywords

• optical sensor
• Tamm plasmon polaritons
• optical Tamm state
• gas refractive index