Here is a nice video about surface plasmons. See the video from 20 minutes onwards> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n9Oz9xR76E

This is an excellent review about SPR in metallic nanoparticles

http://iopscience.iop.org/0022-3727/44/28/283001

And here is an optics course material about surface plasmons from University of Rochester > http://www.optics.rochester.edu/workgroups/novotny/courses/OPT463/plasmonss.pdf

About Maxwell's equations, there is even a website in this name > http://maxwells-equations.com/

Also refer to Electrodynamics by David J. Griffiths

You can read on-line the "Handbook of Surface Plasmon Resonance" RSC, London editors R.B.M. Schasfoort and A.J. Tudos. For a general understanding of SPR I always explain to students the following:

Generally p-polarized light will reflect at several angles of incidence from a high refractive index material e.g. glass to lower RI materal e.g. water or air. An evanescent field is generated because the waves cannot reflect within a wavelength e.g. 700 nm. So it needs about half a wavelength to reflect in an exponential decaying field. When a very high conducting material e.g. silver, gold or copper is placed in the decaying field e.g. 50 nm then the free electrons (which are extremely conducting) behave as a gas-plasma in the solid material that are excited by the photons. Plasmon = abbreviation of plasm(a electr)on.

Only p-polarized light will go through the thin gold layer and excites plasmons and it meets only the excitation condition at the right angle of reflection for that typical wavelength in the combination of both refractive indexes of the glass (high) and water (lower) . The excitation costs energy and this is the reason that at the so-called SPR angle or SPR-dip there is no reflection anymore and heat is generated and dissipated. When close to perfect conditions are met than more than 99% of the light disappears in the gold layer! The evancescent field will be boosted more than 30 times because of the gold layer. The RI of glass will not change but the RI of the very thin layer ath the other side of the gold layer e.g. 300 nm will change the surface plasmon resonance conditions. In Biacore and IBIS instruments easily changes of 10minus6 RIU or 1 RU shift can be measured which corresponds with a submonolayer change of about 1 picogram per square mm.

I hope this gives you a better understanding and "feeling" of the SPR phenomenon.

thanks a lot Richard and Suchand.. it helped me .. thanks again

You can see SPR pages searching for more theoretical references. http://www.sprpages.nl/ You can also use the forum to ask your questions. I hope this help.

The Handbook of Surface Plasmon Resonance is renewed and upgraded to an 2nd edition available since summer 2017. Editor Schasfoort R.B.M. Handbook of Surface Plasmon Resonance 2nd edition, RSC London 2017.

Here is the preface of the 2nd book.

After finishing the first edition of the “Handbook of surface plasmon resonance” in 2007, I thought that the book was an effort of “once in a lifetime”. In objective comments the book was sold as: “This excellent handbook provides comprehensive information with easy to use, stand-alone chapters and will be of great use to anyone working with or affiliated to the technology”. However after the initial success and many citations in scientific publications, I felt more and more uncomfortable with the timely content of many chapters. Additionally I got signals from scientists that after 10 years the outdated book has to be renewed, restyled and re-edited. And I decided to go for it after my key-note lecture entitled “ Overview of 25 years commercial biomolecular interaction analysis” at the label free technologies conference in Boston (MA,US) held coincidently exactly at π-time. (March, 14th, 2015 at nine o clock 3.14159). At that conference I collected the information of the active label free technologies companies and consulted some leading scientist to author a chapter for the second edition.

In my life I did many things twice. And always the second time it was better. For example in 1995 I founded the company IBIS Technologies but it was almost bankrupt in 1999. Since 2012 it got a second life and it is growing in SPR imaging applications. And now I am editor of the second edition of the Handbook of Surface Plasmon Resonance and it should be better than the first edition!

This second edition of the Handbook of Surface Plasmon Resonance is renewed in great (~ 90%) extent with respect to the first edition and is definitely better balanced between improved optics, fluidics, surface chemistries and applications. It is intended for a wide audience: scientists, lab technicians and students as tutorial information for using the technology but also for the wider public interested in SPR as a phenomenon and its applications. Although the book as a whole covers many relevant aspects of biomolecular interaction sensing, it is hoped that the readers of this book will share my enthusiasm for SPR technology. My co-authors and I also hope that we have succeeded revealing the potential of SPR for screening new therapeutic lead candidates and showing highly exciting and unique opportunities for unraveling the functional behavior of complex biological processes.

https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/mavt/process-engineering/omel-dam/documents/Textbook/Maier07.pdf

Basic book in plasmonics. STEFAN A. MAIER PLASMONICS: FUNDAMENTALS AND APPLICATIONS

The road to a solid understanding of plasmonics requires fairly good proficiency in three areas.

1. Computational Electromagnetism/Optics

Presuming a modest background (on the level of Griffiths and Fowles respectively), the next step would be to check out the Dr Raymond Rumpf (aka the EMProfessor) online video course for the following:

A) EMP-6305  Computational Electromagnetics - https://empossible.net/academics/emp5337/

B) EMP-5304  Electromagnetic Analysis Using Finite-Difference Time-Domain - https://empossible.net/academics/emp5304/

Dr Rumpf is skilled in conveying complex topics: but to make sure that the info doesn't go "over your head" make sure to do the MATLAB assignments.

2. Basics of Plasmonics

While the first step was straightforward, here are where things get a bit messey. Plasmonics has various applications across so many disciplines that each professional has their own valid viewpoint and in some cases seemingly conflicting nomenclature. There is an introductory edX course on Plasmonics which achieves a middle ground somewhat:

https://www.edx.org/course/plasmonics-from-fundamentals-to-modern-application

To learn deeply, you need to read a textbook (sorry about that). Two highly recommended books:

A) Plasmonics: Fundamentals and Applications (2007) - Stefan Maier (as suggested by Maksym Stetsenko )

B) Plasmonics: From Basics to Advanced Topics (2012) - Stefan Enoch Nicolas Bonod (Editors)

Dr Maier's book is an easier read, while Dr Enoch and Bonod present a more comprehensive and up to date viewpoint. The Handbook of Surface Plasmon Resonance (2017) edited by Richard B M Schasfoort is a also a great read with a chemistry-first approach, especially the first two chapters.

3. Recent Literature in Plasmonics

Plasmonics is a rapidly evolving field that connects paradigms from across various fields. It is quintessential to study the recent literature to gain an understanding in depth and breadth. Springer has a journal dedicated to plasmonics called... Plasmonics. Try to replicate the results in the literature analytically, numerically or experimentally. You will be surprised at what you will discover!