LAUSR

Limited sensitivity and sensing range are arguably the greatest challenges in microwave sensor design. Recent attempts to improve these properties have relied on metamaterial (MTM)-inspired open-loop resonators coupled to transmission lines (TLs). Although the strongly resonant properties of the resonator sensitively reflect small changes in the environment through a shift in its resonance frequency, the resulting sensitivities remain ultimately limited by the level of coupling between the resonator and the TL. This paper introduces a novel solution to this problem that employs negative-refractive-index TL MTMs to substantially improve this coupling so as to fully exploit its resonant properties. A MTM-infused planar microwave sensor is designed for operation at 2.5 GHz, and is shown to exhibit a significant improvement in sensitivity and linearity. A rigorous signal-flow analysis of the sensor is proposed and shown to provide a fully analytical description of all salient features of both the conventional and MTM-infused sensors. Full-wave simulations confirm the analytical predictions, and all data demonstrate excellent agreement with measurements of a fabricated prototype. The proposed device is shown to be especially useful in the characterization of commonly available high-permittivity liquids as well as in sensitively distinguishing concentrations of ethanol/methanol in water.