Fast temperature sensing using changes in extraordinary optical transmission through an array of subwavelength apertures

Abstract. A fast, sensitive temperature sensor using changes in ex-traordinary optical transmission EOT through an array of nanoholes ina metallic film with a monochromatic collimated light source is analyzedand experimentally demonstrated. The device is composed of a dielec-tric material in contact with a metallic film with an array of nanoholes, 25arrays per chip were treated as a single sensor , on a glass substrate.Although the present experiment used a volume of water in a test cell todemonstrate the phenomena, there are many configurations that imple-ment this technology in a variety of applications. The fast response of thedevice is expected because it measures the average temperature of athin layer of the dielectric material directly above the nanoholes,100 nm. The thermal response parameter of the nanohole array sens-ing region is 10 8 times smaller and orders of magnitude faster than thatof the reference thermistor. The increased speed and sensitivity of thenanohole array temperature sensor over the thermistor is observed inthe reported data. The configuration of this temperature sensor was usedfor simplicity and to demonstrate that EOT effects can be used for tem-perature sensing.