Novel high-quality Fano resonance based on metal-insulator-metal waveguide with L-shaped resonators* *Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51965007) and the “One thousand Young and Middle-Aged College and University Backbone Teachers Cultivation Program” of Guangxi, China (Grant No. 2019).

Abstract

Developing a convenient method that can be routinely applied for ascertaining proportions of different vegetable oils employed in commercial blended edible oils remains a significant challenge. We address this issue by proposing a novel method for detecting volume fraction of different oils based on the fact that these oils are optically transparent and have slightly different indices of refraction at a given temperature and wavelength. Accordingly, we develop a highly sensitive sensor for measuring the index of refraction of oil blends based on Fano resonance spectra obtained using a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguide structure comprising a gapped straight waveguide coupled with two L-shaped resonators. The index of refraction sensitivity and figure of merit of the structure are calculated based on modeling using the finite element method, and the waveguide structure is accordingly optimized by adjusting the different geometric parameters to achieve a high-quality Fano resonance spectrum. The optimized structure achieves an ultra-high refractive index sensitivity of 770 nm/RIU in terms of a refractive index unit (RIU) of 1. Moreover, a highly stable linear relationship is obtained between the refractive index of mixed edible oils and the resonance wavelength. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed structure can detect slight changes in the volume fractions of the components in blended oils.