Optik - International Journal for Light and Electron Optics 172 (2018) 1199–1204

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Optik
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijleo

Original research article

A refractive index sensor based on an analogy T shaped

T
metal–insulator–metal waveguide
⁎
Liu Wang, Ya-Ping Zeng , Zhi-Yong Wang, Xiong-Ping Xia, Qiu-Qun Liang
College of Science, Guilin University of Technology, Guilin 541004, China

A R T IC LE I N F O ABS TRA CT

Keywords: A refractive index sensor based on plasmonics metal–insulator–metal (MIM) waveguide coupled
Plasmonics with an analogy T shaped resonator is proposed. The analogy T shaped resonator consists of two
Metal–insulator–metal waveguide perpendicular rectangle cavities. At visible light range, the transmission characteristics of the
Refractive index sensor sensor are investigated by using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The trans-
Finite-difference time-domain method
mission spectrum exhibits a Fano resonance shape, which is caused by the interaction between
the broadband and narrowband resonances of the two rectangle cavities. The refractive index
sensing property is systematically studied with varied structural parameters and refractive in-
dices. The result shows the maximum sensitivity of the sensor is 680 nm/RIU. The sensor may be
potential applied in integrated of optical circuits.

1. Introduction

Electromagnetic waves couple with free electron oscillations propagate at metal–insulator interfaces, known as surface plasmon
polaritons (SPPs), have been considered the most potential way to realize highly integrated optical circuits because it can carry
energy and information to overcome the diffraction limit of light [1]. Based on SPPs, the size of photonic devices can be made small,
the optical transmission and control in nanoscale can be realized [2]. Therefore, a large amount of plasmonic optical components
based on SPPs have been proposed and demonstrated both numerically and experimentally in metallic nanostructures [3].
Plasmonic waveguide structures have drawn many attentions for prospect of integration. Two kinds of SPPs waveguides, the
metal–insulator–metal (MIM) structure [1] and the insulator–metal–insulator (IMI) structure [4], have been widely investigated.
Compared with the IMI waveguide, the MIM waveguide has smaller mode size, stronger confinement of light, shorter propagation
length and easier to fabrication [5]. Therefore, the MIM waveguide is more compact and easier to integrate into optical devices in
subwavelength scale. Many components based on MIM waveguide, such as couplers [6], splitters [7,8], filters [9–13], Bragg reflectors
[14,15], demultiplexer [16–18], all-optical switcher [19] and trapping system [20–23], have been numerically or experimentally
demonstrated. In recent years, based on the MIM waveguide coupling with cavities, the optical phenomena such as Fano resonance
[24–27] and plasmon induced transparency [27–29] have aroused many researchers’ interest. The phenomena are usually sensitive to
the surrounding environment, hence, the plasmonics MIM waveguide can be designed to sensors [30–33].
In this paper, we have proposed a new kind of plasmonic MIM waveguide structure coupled with an analogy T shaped resonator,
which includes two perpendicular rectangle cavities. The transmission characteristics of the waveguide are investigated by using the
FDTD method with perfectly matched layers (PML) absorbing boundary condition. The results show that the structure can generate
the Fano resonance at visible light range and has the typical refractive index sensing function. The transmission characteristics are

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (Y.-P. Zeng).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijleo.2018.07.093
Received 4 February 2018; Received in revised form 10 June 2018; Accepted 24 July 2018
0030-4026/ © 2018 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
L. Wang et al. Optik - International Journal for Light and Electron Optics 172 (2018) 1199–1204

Fig. 1. Schematic of the MIM waveguide coupled with two perpendicular rectangle resonators.

systematically investigated.

2. Model and method

Fig. 1 depicts the schematic of the proposed plasmonics MIM waveguide refractive index sensor. The sensor is composed with an
analogy T shaped resonator. The blue and white areas represent the silver (Ag) and dielectric, respectively. The frequency-dependent
complex relative permittivity of Ag is referred to Ref. [34]. The widths of the channel w and two perpendicular rectangle cavities w1,
w2 are fixed at 50 nm. The length of rectangle cavities are l1, l2, respectively. As shown in Fig. 1, g1 and g2 are the coupling thicknesses
between the two perpendicular rectangle cavities, and between the waveguide and rectangle 2, respectively.
Since the width of the insulator channel is much smaller than the incident wavelength, only the fundamental TM mode wave is
excited in the structure, whose dispersion relation is determined by the equation [35]:
k
εd km + εm kd tanh ⎛ d w ⎞ = 0
⎝2 ⎠ (1)

km and kd defined as: km = β 2 − εm k 02 and kd = β 2 − εd k 02 , here εm and εd are dielectric constants of the metal and insulator,
respectively. β designate the constant of propagation for SPPs and k0 = 2π/λ0 is the wave vector of light with wavelength λ0 in free-
space. The effective refractive index of the waveguide is represented as neff = β/k0.
In the following simulation, the 2D FDTD method with perfectly matched layers (PML) absorbing boundary condition is employed
to calculate the interplay between incident waves and the proposed MIM waveguide. The minimum spatial mesh steps are set
Δx = Δy = 1 nm and the time step is set Δt = Δx/2c, where c is the velocity of light in vacuum. The incident light transmits along the
x direction with TM polarization, as shown in Fig. 1.

3. Results and discussion

When the incident light transmits along the x axis in the waveguide from position S, parts of them can couple into the rectangular
cavities, and the phase difference of the wave in the cavity can be expressed as:
2π
Δφ = neff ·L + φref
λ0 (2)

here L is the effective length of the cavities, φref is the phase shift on the metal–insulator interface. When Δφ = 2mπ, (m = 1, 2, 3⋯),
the waves will resonate in the cavity, the resonance wavelength can be expressed as:
neff ·L
λ res = φ
m − 2ref π (3)

Eq. (3) implies that the λres increases with the increase of the L and neff.
In Fig. 2, the hollow red line and solid black line represent the transmission spectra of the MIM waveguide with and without the
rectangle 1, respectively. The parameters of the structure are n = 1 RIU, l1 = l2 = 400 nm and g1 = g2 = 10 nm. The transmission
spectrum of the MIM waveguide without rectangle 1 with the dip at wavelength λdip = 668 nm. When the MIM waveguide with
rectangle 1, which is placed on the middle of the height of rectangle 2, there are a transmission dip at wavelengths λdip = 626 nm and
a transmission peak at wavelength λpeak = 682 nm, which is depended on the Fano resonance [36] of the structure. Therefore, the
double phenomena of the electromagnetically-induced transparency and the Fano resonance are realized in the proposed analogy T
shaped MIM waveguide with two perpendicular rectangle resonant cavities.
To illustrate the transmission characteristics of the proposed waveguide clearly, the magnetic field intensity |Hz|2 distribution of
the spectra at the resonance dip and peak are investigated. Fig. 3(a) and (b) shows the |Hz|2 distribution of the proposed sensor at
wavelengths λdip = 626 nm and λpeak = 682 nm, respectively. When electromagnetic waves transmit through the waveguide, parts of

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L. Wang et al. Optik - International Journal for Light and Electron Optics 172 (2018) 1199–1204

Fig. 2. Transmission spectrum of the MIM waveguide with and without the rectangle 1.

Fig. 3. The magnetic field intensity |Hz|2 distribution of the proposed sensor at (a) λdip = 626 nm and (b) λpeak = 682 nm.

them can couple into the two perpendicular rectangle resonators. When the wave reach the resonant wavelength of the structure, the
electromagnetic energy will be trapped in the rectangles as shown in Fig. 3(a), and form the transit dip in the transmission spectrum
as shown in Fig. 2.
When the two perpendicular rectangle cavities filled with media of different refractive indices, the refractive index n equably
increased from 1 to 1.1 at intervals of 0.02. Fig. 4(a) shows the transmission spectra of the proposed MIM waveguide. The spectrum is
shifted due to the change of the refractive index in the rectangle. It means that the structure can be applied to the refractive index
sensor, and the shift can be defined as the sensitivity of the sensor. The sensitivity of the proposed sensor, defined as Δλ/Δn, is
obtained by extracting the value in the spectra with varying refractive indices. As shown in Fig. 4(b), the sensitivity of the sensor is

Fig. 4. (a) Transmission spectra of the MIM sensor with different refractive indices n. (b) The Fano resonance wavelength shift Δλ with the change of
the refractive index Δn.

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Fig. 5. (a) The transmission spectra for different coupling thickness g1. (b) The transmission spectra for different coupling thickness g2. (c) The
transmission spectra for coupling thickness g1 and g2 varied synchronously. (d) The resonance wavelength shift Δλ with refractive index changing
Δn.

625 nm/RIU. The figure of merit (FOM), which is defined as (Δλ/Δn)/FWHM, is 8.68 for the proposed sensor.
To investigate the effect of the coupling thickness on the Fano resonance of the structure, the g1 and/or g2 varying from 6 nm to
14 nm at intervals of 2 nm with the other parameters maintaining at w = w1 = w2 = 50 nm, l1 = l2 = 400 nm and n = 1 RIU. Fig. 5(a)
shows the transmission spectra of the sensor with varying thickness g1. It can be seen that the transmittance of the Fano resonance dip
increased slightly while the position essentially unchanged. The thickness g2 main influence the transmittance of the resonance
wavelengths of the MIM waveguide while the position of the wavelengths essentially unchanged, as shown in Fig. 5(b). When the
thickness g1 and g2 are varied synchronously, the transmittance of the Fano resonance dip increased slightly while the position
essentially unchanged, as shown in Fig. 5(c). Fig. 5(d) shows the resonance wavelength shift Δλ with the refractive index changing Δn
for the coupling thickness g1 and g2 varying synchronously. The maximum sensitivity of the sensor is 655 nm/RIU with
g1 = g2 = 6 nm.
The impact of different lengths of the two perpendicular rectangle cavities on the transmission characteristic of the sensor is also
investigated. The l1 and/or l2 are varied from 360 nm to 440 nm at intervals of 20 nm with the other parameters maintaining at
w = w1 = w2 = 50 nm, g1 = g2 = 10 nm and n = 1 RIU. Fig. 6(a) and (b) shows the transmission spectra of the sensor for different
lengths of the two rectangles l1 and l2, respectively. It can be seen that the spectrum is red-shift with increase of the length l1 and l2.
However, the change of the transmittance of the dips is slightly different. With increasing of the rectangle length l1, the transmittance
of the transmission dip is reduced at short-wave band but risen at length-wave band, as shown in Fig. 6(a). While the contrary is the
case for the rectangle length l2, as shown in Fig. 6(b). Fig. 6(c) shows that the transmission spectra of the sensor are red-shift with the
transmittance essentially unchanged for the lengths of the two rectangles l1 and l2 varying synchronously. The resonance wavelength
shift Δλ with the refractive index changing Δn for the lengths l1 and l2 varying synchronously, as shown in Fig. 6(d). The maximum
sensitivity of the sensor is 680 nm/RIU with l1 = l2 = 440 nm.

4. Summary

A plasmonics metal–insulator–metal (MIM) waveguide coupled with an analogy T shaped resonator is proposed, and the trans-
mission characteristics are investigated by using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method with perfectly matched layers
(PML) absorbing boundary condition. It is found that the structure can generate both the electromagnetically-induced transparency
and the Fano resonance at visible light range. Moreover, it has the typical refractive index sensing function. The transmission
characteristics are systematically investigated for the structure parameters. The Fano resonance is mainly effected by the refractive
index n, l1 and l2 varying synchronously, and coupling thickness g1. The transmittance is impacted by the coupling thickness g2, l1 and

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Fig. 6. (a) The transmission spectra for different lengths l1 of the rectangle 1. (b) The transmission spectra for different lengths l2 of the rectangle 2.
(c) The transmission spectra for lengths l1 and l2 varied synchronously. (d) The resonance wavelength shift Δλ with refractive index changing Δn.

l2 varying independently. The maximum sensitivity of the sensor is 680 nm/RIU. The sensor based on the MIM waveguide may be
potential applied in integrated of optical circuits.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11564008), the Natural Science
Foundation of Guangxi province (2016GXNSFAA380071), the Scientific research project of GuangXi Education Department (Grant
No. 2018KY0263) and Ph.D. research startup foundation of GuiLin University of Technology (Grant Nos. 002401003422 and
002401003423).

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