Mechanically hot-pressed flattened plastic optical fiber-based SPR sensor and its RI sensing

This paper presents a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor based on a flattened plastic optical fiber (POF) for refractive index (RI) sensing. The flattened POF is fabricated by mechanical hot pressing. Afterwards, a thin film of Ag and Au is first deposited on one side of the flat surface to excite the SPR effect. The results show that the flattened POF-based SPR probe coated with the Au film has a sharper SPR peak and a narrower peak width than the probe coated with Ag film. To improve the SPR effect, two flat surfaces of the flattened POF are coated with metal film (Ag and Au). It was found that the sensor showed better RI sensing performance compared to the sensor with only one flat surface coated with metal film. For the flattened POF with two flat surfaces coated with Ag film, achieving the highest RI sensitivity of 2507 nm/RIU in the RI range of 1.33–1.39. The proposed sensor is a low-cost solution for RI measurement with potential applications in the medical and biochemical fields.