Summary:
It has been well known that surface plasmon resonance can enhance light interactions with chemicals bonded on metal nanostructure surfaces. Therefore, nanostructure surface plasmon resonance sensors can detect very small amount contaminant chemicals derived from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In this project, we designed and fabricated nanohole array surface plasmon resonance sensors on glass substrates and also on optical fiber facets. We developed an oblique angle metal deposition technique that can fabricate arbitrarily small metal nanoholes on optical fiber tips. We demonstrated an optical fiber nanohole array surface plasmon resonance sensor that can detect the change of the chemicals around the nanohole surface area.