Quantum Plasmonic Sensors

Changhyoup Lee, Benjamin Lawrie, Raphael Pooser, Kwang Geol Lee, Carsten Rockstuhl, Mark Tame

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

93 Scopus citations

Abstract

The extraordinary sensitivity of plasmonic sensors is well-known in the optics and photonics community. These sensors exploit simultaneously the enhancement and the localization of electromagnetic fields close to the interface between a metal and a dielectric. This enables, for example, the design of integrated biochemical sensors at scales far below the diffraction limit. Despite their practical realization and successful commercialization, the sensitivity and associated precision of plasmonic sensors are starting to reach their fundamental classical limit given by quantum fluctuations of light - known as the shot-noise limit. To improve the sensing performance of these sensors beyond the classical limit, quantum resources are increasingly being employed. This area of research has become known as "quantum plasmonic sensing", and it has experienced substantial activity in recent years for applications in chemical and biological sensing. This review aims to cover both plasmonic and quantum techniques for sensing, and it shows how they have been merged to enhance the performance of plasmonic sensors beyond traditional methods. We discuss the general framework developed for quantum plasmonic sensing in recent years, covering the basic theory behind the advancements made, and describe the important works that made these advancements. We also describe several key works in detail, highlighting their motivation, the working principles behind them, and their future impact. The intention of the review is to set a foundation for a burgeoning field of research that is currently being explored out of intellectual curiosity and for a wide range of practical applications in biochemistry, medicine, and pharmaceutical research.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4743-4804
Number of pages62
JournalChemical Reviews
Volume121
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 28 2021

Funding

At KIT, this work was partially supported by the Volkswagen Foundation and by the VIRTMAT project. At KIAS, CL was supported by a KIAS Individual Grant (QP081101) via the Quantum Universe Center. At ORNL, BL was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. At HU, KGL was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea and funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (Grants No. 2020R1A2C1010014) and Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2019-0-00296). At SU, MST was supported by the South African National Research Foundation, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research National Laser Centre, and the South African Research Chair Initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation and National Research Foundation.

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