Plasmon line shaping using nanocrosses for high sensitivity localized surface plasmon resonance sensing

The detection of small changes in the wavelength position of localized surface plasmon resonances in metal nanostructures has been used successfully in applications such as label-free detection of biomarkers. Practical implementations, however, often suffer from the large spectral width of the plasmon resonances induced by large radiative damping in the metal nanocavities. By means of a tailored design and using a reproducible nanofabrication process, high quality planar gold plasmonic nanocavities are fabricated with strongly reduced radiative damping. Moreover, additional substrate etching results in a large enhancement of the sensing volume and a subsequent increase of the sensitivity. Coherent coupling of bright and dark plasmon modes in a nanocross and nanobar is used to generate high quality factor subradiant Fano resonances. Experimental sensitivities for these modes exceeding 1000 nm/RIU with a Figure of Merit reaching 5 are demonstrated in microfluidic ensemble spectroscopy.