Applied Nanophotonics, Liquid Crystals and Biomedical Optics

A simple phase-shifted polarimetric scheme to extract light polarization changes induced by the sample in surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors is presented. The proposed method is based on the conventional Kretschmann–Raether configuration in the angular diverging beam mode using a single wavelength and a variable liquid crystal retarder. An experimental demonstration was performed using different aqueous solutions of ethylene glycol showing a sensitivity of 118.7 deg/refractive-index-unit (RIU) and a detection limit of 1.03 × 10− ⁷ RIU.