Effect of Temperature on the Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) Mode along a Metal - Liquid Crystal Interface

Abstract

The effect of temperature on the surface plasmon mode parameters for surface plasmons (SPs) excited by prism coupling along the interface of a thin silver film and homeotropically aligned liquid crystals (LCs), 5CB and UCF2⁵ are theoretically studied. The change in the SPR angle of dip with temperature is found to be almost linear below the clearing temperature of the LCs. The temperature sensitivity is found to be high in the temperature range where the LC behaves as an anisotropic material. The sensitivity is found to be higher when SPR reflectance at a fixed incident angle is used as the variable parameter. The shift in SPR angle of dip is found to be linear with the change in birefringence of the LC due to the change in temperature. The change in SPR parameters with temperature is found to be much lesser in the temperature range where the LC behaves as an isotropic material.