Abstract. With the purpose to improve such service characteristics of transducers on the basis of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) as the sensitivity and stability, we have analyzed the influences of a structure and a relief of the surface of polycrystalline gold films, which are determined by technological conditions of their production and by the low-temperature annealing, on their optical characteristics, namely, the coefficients of refraction, extinction, and light scattering. It is shown that the mechanism of enhancement of the sensitivity of an SPR-based transducer consists in a decrease in the coefficient of extinction of a metal film, as the annealing temperature increases. At the optimum annealing temperature (120C), we observed the smoothing of a small-scale roughness of the gold film surface, which decreases the scattering of plasmons, favors the defectless formation of protective nano-sized layers, and enhances the sensitivity and stability of the operation of SPR-based transducers.

Keywords: surface plasmon resonance, gold films, low-temperature annealing, microrelief of the surface, optical constants, service characteristics of an SPR-based transducer.

Full Text (PDF)

References

Back to Volume 19 N3