Surface Plasmon Resonance: Methods and Instrumentation

In view of its simple instrumentation and its high surface sensitivity, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and, more recently, SPR microscopy gains an increasing significance to numerous problems concerned with the study of interactions occurring near to or at surfaces. Applications can be found in the optical behaviour of metals, the study of Langmuir–Blodgett films and self-assembled monolayers, the interactions of proteins with interfaces, or redox reactions at interfaces. A fast-increasing field is the development of sensitive chemooptical sensors, intended to quantitatively and selectively monitor the presence of prespecified and chemical species, which can be in the range from a molecular mass of ~ 200 Da to 150 kDa. The main reason for the high sensitivity of SPR to surface phenomena should be attributed to the high local electromagnetic field strengths brought about by surface plasmons (SPs). Several excellent monographs have been published on SPR theory, whereas an overview on applications is the subject of another article in this Encyclopedia. This chapter will be concerned with experimental techniques for a variety of SPR applications.