Dispersion curve-based sensitivity engineering for enhanced surface plasmon resonance detection

•We found a correlation between slope of dispersion curve and SPR sensor sensitivity.•Enhanced sensitivity was achieved numerically by engineering the dispersion curve.•The proposed scheme with a gold nanograting provided a 5-times larger sensitivity.•This study shows the availability of dispersion-based sensitivity engineering method.

Manipulation of dispersion curve for enhancing surface plasmon resonance (SPR) detection is proposed. Based on strong correlation between slope of dispersion curve and SPR angle shift, it is confirmed that dispersion curve characteristics can be employed as an analysis tool to evaluate SPR sensor performance and to predict anomalous plasmonic behaviors. Complicated resonance shift in SPR angle, especially in the presence of metallic nanograting, such as negative shift, can be controlled reliably by engineering the dispersion curve. As it has a dependence on geometrical parameters of metallic films and gratings, dispersion relation engineering is also useful in optimizing the sensor sensitivity. For a wavelength of λ=630 nm, introduction of a gold nanograting shows a significant improvement in sensitivity by more than 5 times, compared to a traditional thin-film-based SPR structure. In addition, we find that use of a longer wavelength in near-infrared region can be advantageous for avoiding a negative SPR shift and obtaining a narrow and deep SPR curve. Our approach is expected to extend the applicability of dispersion-based sensitivity engineering technique to a variety of SPR platforms for highly enhanced SPR detection.