Influence of the evanescent field decay length on the sensitivity of plasmonic nanodisks and nanoholes

We evaluate and compare the sensitivity of gold nanodisks on silica substrates and nanoholes made in silica-supported gold films, two of the most common sensor structures used in plasmonic biosensing. An alumina overcoat was applied by atomic layer deposition (ALD) to precisely control the interfacial refractive index and determine the evanescent plasmonic field decay length. The results are in good agreement with analytical models and biomolecular binding experiments for the two substrates. We found that nanodisks outperform nanoholes for thin dielectric coatings (<∼20 nm), while the opposite holds true for thicker coatings (>∼20 nm). The optimum nanoplasmonic transducer element for a given biorecognition reaction can be chosen based on experimentally determined bulk sensitivities/noise levels and theoretically estimated evanescent field decay lengths.