Surface plasmon resonance on the surface: metal - liquid crystal layer

Abstract

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is widely used in different types of optical detection schemes and for light manipulation at sub-wavelength scale. Usually Kretschmann configuration is used for effective SPR excitation. There are a lot of experimental and theoretical investigations about the influence of the dielectric, adjacent to the metal, on SPR. However, till now the influence on liquid crystal layer, adjacent to the metal, is not considered to our best knowledge. The purpose of the present paper is to cover this gap. We simulate the influence of thin layer of liquid crystal, adjacent to the metal, on the SPR characteristics. For this purpose Maxwell equations are numerically solved for layer structure: prism/gold/liquid crystal/air. The light reflection spectra are calculated for chiral structure of ferroelectric smectic C (SmC*) liquid crystal layer. The angular and wavelength response are considered. Special attention is paid to SPR excitation for variation of tilt angle and different angle of incident light. The influence of SPR of the pitch length and cell thickness is also considered.