Surface plasmon effects induced by uncollimated emission of semiconductor microstructures.

We have recently proposed an innovative microstructure for a monolithically integrated surface plasmon resonance (SPR) device comprising a metal coated SiO(2) layer deposited atop a photoluminescence emitting quantum well (QW) wafer. The functioning of such a device is based on the uncollimated and incoherent emission of semiconductors. We discuss the results of our calculations aimed at the description of SPs coupling in QW semiconductor-based SPR architectures designed for biosensing applications. Two SPs modes could be coupled in the 0(th) diffraction order where the injected in-plane wavevectors from the QW structures can always meet SPR conditions. This results in increasing the SPs coupling efficiency up to 100 times higher than in case of indirect SPs injection.