Absorption and related optical dispersion effects on the spectral response of a surface plasmon resonance sensor.

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing is an optical technique that allows real time detection of small changes in the physical properties, in particular in the refractive index, of a dielectric medium near a metal film surface. One way to increase the SPR signal shift is then to incorporate a substance possessing a strong dispersive refractive index in the range of the plasmon resonance band. In this paper, we investigate the impact of materials possessing a strong dispersive index integrated to the dielectric medium on the SPR reflectivity profile.