Field-Enhancing Metasurface For Sensing Applications

Resonance phenomenon in general allows large responses from small inputs. This effective amplification effect has been in successful use in diverse range of sensing applications. More specifically, in case of optical resonances, various micro- and nano-resonator designs have been proposed so far with a large range of performance parameters. On the one hand, micro-scale dielectric resonators can provide extreme sensitivity in terms of (change in the measured light intensity) per (unit change in the molar concentration of analytes). The downside is that the sensing volume is typically large in comparison and the system may be susceptible to environmental changes such as temperature. On the other hand, nano-scale resonators can achieve very high performance values in terms of (change in the measured light intensity) per (unit change in the mass of analytes), especially if optical nonlinearity is involved. The downside is that it requires careful design such that the resonators can be fabricated in a reproducible and cost-effective fashion. In this talk, we focus on nano-scale resonator designs and show preliminary results of enhanced detection sensitivity based on array of tiny optical resonators that can be fabricated over a large area.