Plasmonic platform for integrated mid-IR sensing applications

Environmental sensing is a topic of increasing interest and has triggered much research towards fully integrated sensor solutions. In this context optical measurement approaches in the infrared can provide intrinsic selectivity and sensitivity for integrated gas sensors. Recently, we proposed the possibility of the incorporation of IR-active plasmonic materials to photonic crystal waveguides, which could allow to increase sensitivities and significantly reduce the size of such sensors. Here, we will first present the overall approach and compare two possible specific realizations.