Spontaneous emission noise is an important limit to the performance of active plasmonic devices. Here, we investigate the spontaneous emission noise in the long-range surface plasmon-polariton waveguide based optical gyroscope. A theoretical model of the sensitivity is established to study the incoherent multi-beam interference of spontaneous emission in the gyroscope. Numerical results show that spontaneous emission produces a drift in the transmittance spectra and lowers the signal-to-noise-ratio of the gyroscope. It also strengthens the shot noise to be the main limit to the sensitivity of the gyroscope for high propagation loss. To reduce the negative effects of the spontaneous emission noise on the gyroscope, an external feedback loop is suggested to estimate the drift in the transmittance spectra and therefor enhance the sensitivity. Our work lays a foundation for the improvement of long-range surface plasmon-polariton gyroscope and paves the way to its practical application.
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