There are many applications which require high sensitivity spectral detection. In some cases, you need the wavelength range to be extended to cover all necessary spectral fingerprints. We are proposing a broadband spectrometer for ultrasensitive detection based on plasmonic hyperbolic metamaterials and diffraction gratings. Using variety of materials in fabrication of the hyperbolic metamaterials, we can cover the wide spectral range from near UV (~250 nm) to IR (~2 μm). In our spectrometer, the diffraction gratings have two functions. One is coupling the incident light source with the plasmonic guiding modes, which have a very high effective refractive index (≥8.1), much higher than the refractive index of germanium (4.05), the natural material with the highest refractive index. While a prism can also be used for coupling guiding modes with incident light, a diffraction grating is the only way to excite the guiding modes because of the plasmonics modes with very high effective refractive index. The second function of the diffraction gratings is their natural role in spectrometers. We demonstrated based on numerical simulations that we could reach high detection spectral sensitivity using compact diffraction gratings combined with hyperbolic metamaterials; the huge “n-meter” spectrometer is not necessary.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.