Hybrid Plasmonic Waveguide Based Platform for Refractive Index and Temperature Sensing

A nanoscale 3D hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPWG) refractive index-cum- temperature sensor has been proposed and simulated in this work. The aqueous analyte (benzene C
₆
H
₆
) sensing is possible over the wavelength range from
$1.18~\mu \text{m}$
to
$2.2~\mu \text{m}$
. A well-known refractive index (RI) sensing method (or wavelength interrogation) is considered for the proposed Si-TiO
₂
-SiO
₂
-Au nanostructure. The sensor design includes, titanium dioxide (TiO
₂
) layer deposited over the silicon dioxide to enhance the overall sensitivity of the HPWG sensor. The finite element method (FEM) based 3D-numerical simulations are performed for an IR band signal, predicting 1022.75 nm/RIU device sensitivity and 2.95 nm/°C temperature sensitivity. The proposed sensor is suitable for next-generation on-chip biochemical sensing applications with nanoscale dimensions, low cost, and high sensitivity.