Plasmonics: influence of the intermediate (or stick) layer on the efficiency of sensors

International audienceThe efficiency of plasmon-resonance-based sensors can be greatly improved with an accurate design of the nano-structures that constitute them. In this work we focus our attention on the design of a particular kind of these nanometric structures that consists of planar multilayered systems. We show the significant influence, on the plasmon resonance conditions, of the intermediate layer used to adhere a thin film of gold to a dielectric substrate. To illustrate this effect, we consider different intermediate layers to compute the optimal geometry that vanish the reflected energy. For this, we use the S-formulation and an evolutionary method for the electromagnetic and the optimization problems, respectively