Computational and Experimental Tools for Bloch Surface Wave Simulation and Application

This talk presents newly developed computational and experimental tools to explore Bloch surface wave phenomena. Bloch surface waves in nanoscale multilayer structures have significant potential in a variety of applications. The narrow resonance makes the excitation appealing for sensing and results in high surface electromagnetic field enhancement enabling surface non-linear optical effects. Additionally, the long propagation length is of value in integrated optics. Here we describe a recently developed suite of open-source computational design tools written in python and detail a compact, inexpensive experimental prism configuration using a laser diode and CMOS camera mounted in a 3D printed enclosure. The optical multilayer simulation module, available as an open-source download via the package installer for python (pip install optical_multilayer), contains a variety of functions to calculate the transmission, reflection, and cross-sectional field profile of multilayer structures containing dielectric or metal layers. The experimental platform uses simple optics and a low-cost diode laser and CMOS camera to create an effective sensing system capable of refractive index and antibody-antigen sensing.