A Comparative Study of Surface Plasmon and Tamm Plasmon Polaritons for Hydrogen Sensing

Due to the exponential increase in energy consumption and CO 2 emissions, new sustainable energy sources have emerged, and hydrogen (H 2 ) is one of them. Despite all the advantages, H 2 has high flammability, so constant monitoring is essential. Two optical techniques were numerically studied and compared with the goal of H 2 sensing: surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) and Tamm plasmon polaritons (TPP). The H 2 -sensitive material used was palladium (Pd) in both techniques. The SPP structure was found to have more sensitivity to H 2 than TPP, 23 and 5nm/4vol% H 2 , respectively. However, the latter has lower FWHM, with the minimum of the band showing reflectivity near 0%. In addition, TPP also uses more costeffective materials and can be interrogated at normal incidence with depolarized light. The potential of using each of these optical techniques for H 2 sensing was demonstrated.