Surface plasmon resonance image sensor module of spin-coated silver film with polymer layer.

Prism modules of 20 nm-, 40 nm-, and 60 nm-thick spin-coated silver films both without and with an upper 100 nm-thick spin-coated polymer layer were fabricated for surface plasmon resonance (SPR) image sensor applications. The prism modules were applied to an SPR image sensor system. The coefficients of determination (R2s) for the 20 nm-, 40 nm- and 60 nm-thick silver films without the polymer layer were 0.9231, 0.9901, and 0.9889, respectively, and with the polymer layer 0.9228, 0.9951, and 0.9880, respectively when standard ethanol solutions with 0.1% intervals in the range of 20.0% to 20.5% were applied. The upper polymer layer has no effect on the R2. The prism modules of the 40-nm-thick spin-coated silver films had the highest R2 value of approximately 0.99. The durability of the 40 nm-thick spin-coated silver film with the 100 nm-thick polymer layer is much better than that without the upper low-loss polymer layer. The developed SPR image sensor module of the 40 nm-thick spin-coated silver film with the upper 100 nm-thick low-loss polymer film is expected to be a very cost-effective and robust solution because the films are formed at low temperatures in a short period of time without requiring a vacuum system and are very durable.