Thin amorphous silicon oxide ICPECVD layer on gold surface for surface plasmon resonance measurements

Abstract

The present study demonstrates that thin layers of amorphous silicon oxide (SiOx) grown by inductively-coupled plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (ICPECVD) technology at lower temperatures can be successfully combined with biosensors. In particular, gold-amorphous silica (Au/SiOx) interfaces were investigated for their potential applications as a low-cost Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) sensor chip. We report here on the fabrication and characterization of stable and good reliabilities of SiOx deposited at 80°C at different pressures. The refractive index (n) of SiOx varied from 1.456 to 1.462. The results show that the sensitivity and minimum light reflectivity at the resonance angle is extremely sensitive to any changes in the index of refraction and any changes in optical thickness.