The concept of surface plasmon resonance can be used to build the most-sensitive instruments for refractive index sensing with dielectric and metal layers which are sub-wavelength in thickness. This is demonstrated with the electric field calculations on plasmonic gratings, of both rectangular and sinusoidal profiles, on polymer layer. The finite element method is also used to find the optimal thickness of the layers and to calculate the reflection, transmission, and absorption spectra of the plasmonic gratings, to identify the wavelength range most appropriate to the application.
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