Thermal energy harvesting plasmonic based chemical sensors.

Detection of gases such as H2, CO, and NO2 at 500 °C or greater requires materials with thermal stability and reliability. One of the major barriers toward integration of plasmonic-based chemical sensors is the requirement of multiple components such as light sources and spectrometers. In this work, plasmonic sensing results are presented where thermal energy is harvested using lithographically patterned Au nanorods, replacing the need for an external incident light source. Gas sensing results using the harvested thermal energy are in good agreement with sensing experiments, which used an external incident light source. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to reduce the wavelength parameter space from 665 variables down to 4 variables with similar levels of demonstrated selectivity. The combination of a plasmonic-based energy harvesting sensing paradigm with PCA analysis offers a novel path toward simplification and integration of plasmonic-based sensing methods.