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Updated: Jul 12, 2025
Plasmonic Trapping and Release of Nanoparticles in a Monitoring Environment
Published on: April 4, 2017
Highly sensitive plasmonic sensing based on a topological insulator nanoparticle
Dikun Li1, Hua Lu1, Shouhao Shi1
1MOE Key Laboratory of Material Physics and Chemistry under Extraordinary Conditions, Key Laboratory of Light-Field Manipulation and Information Acquisition, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Optical Information Technology, School of Physical Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, 710129, China. hualu@nwpu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Topological insulators (TIs) are a new type of Dirac material that possess unique electrical and optical properties, enabling the generation of surface plasmons over an extensive spectral range with promising applications in functional devices. Herein, we fabricated antimony telluride (Sb2Te3) TI nanoparticles by using magnetron sputtering and focused ion beam (FIB) lithography techniques, and experimentally demonstrated high-performance refractive index nanosensing. We find that the Sb2Te3 TI nanoparticles can support the excitation of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), which depends on the dimensions of the TI nanoparticle. TI-based LSPR can contribute to the nanoscale sensing of the surrounding refractive index with a high sensitivity of 443 nm RIU-1, which is comparable to that of plasmonic sensors based on metallic nanoparticles. The experimental results are in excellent agreement with finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) numerical simulations. This work will pave a new way to explore TI optical properties and applications in nanophotonic devices, especially plasmonic nanosensors.
