Enhancing the figure of merit of refractive index sensors by magnetoplasmons in nanogratings

The sensing performance of one-dimensional magnetic nanograting based on magnetoplasmons was investigated. The predictable Kerr reversal and enhancement are achieved in our experiment. The further result shows that the shift of the Kerr null point has a linear relationship with the surrounding refractive index in a wide range. In addition, a huge figure of merit (FoM) of 1728/refractive index unit is achieved, which is 1 order of magnitude higher than the results reported. The experiment and theory confirm that the excitation of surface plasmons leads to the Kerr reversal and enhancement, resulting in a huge FoM.