2.7 3.

Article

A Reconfigurable Terahertz
Metamaterial Absorber for
Gas Sensing Applications

Shruti, Sasmita Pahadsingh, Bhargav Appasani, Avireni Srinivasulu, Nicu Bizon and
Phatiphat Thounthong

Special Issue
Active, Tunable and Reconfigurable Elastic Metamaterials
Edited by
Dr. Kuo-Chih Chuang, Dr. Yanfeng Wang and Dr. Yongquan Liu

https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst13020158
 crystals
Article
A Reconfigurable Terahertz Metamaterial Absorber for Gas
Sensing Applications
Shruti 1 , Sasmita Pahadsingh 1 , Bhargav Appasani 1, *, Avireni Srinivasulu 2 , Nicu Bizon 3,4,5, *
and Phatiphat Thounthong 6,7

1 School of Electronics Engineering, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar 751024, India

2 School of Engineering and Technology, Mohan Babu University, Tirupati 517102, India
3 Faculty of Electronics, Communication and Computers, University of Pitesti, 110040 Pitesti, Romania
4 ICSI Energy Department, National Research and Development Institute for Cryogenic and Isotopic Technologies,
240050 Ramnicu Valcea, Romania
5 Doctoral School, University Politehnica of Bucharest, Splaiul Independentei Street No. 313,
060042 Bucharest, Romania
6 Renewable Energy Research Centre (RERC), Faculty of Technical Education, King Mongkut’s University of
Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok 10800, Thailand
7 Group of Research in Electrical Engineering of Nancy (GREEN), University of Lorraine-GREEN,
F-54000 Nancy, France
* Correspondence: [email protected] (B.A.); [email protected] (N.B.)

Abstract: Reconfigurable metamaterials have immense applications in sensing. A refractive index

reconfigurable terahertz metamaterial absorber was investigated in this research for gas sensing
applications. The absorption spectrum reconfigures with the changes in the surrounding medium’s
refractive index. The proposed absorber displays positive permittivity and negative permeability
at the resonance frequency of 3.045 THz indicating magnetic resonance. The design consists of
concentric U-shaped rings that were optimally designed to perform the parametric analysis using
the finite element method (FEM). The absorption bands offered by the structure were found to
be insensitive to variation in polarization angles up to 60°. The outcome of this design approach
yields a 99.75% absorption rate with a Q-factor of 87. Additionally, the equivalent circuit model
Citation: Shruti; Pahadsingh, S.;
of this proposed absorber was analyzed to estimate the resonance frequency, which reveals good
Appasani, B.; Srinivasulu, A.; Bizon,
agreement with the simulated ones. Moreover, the structure was designed for a refractive index
N.; Thounthong, P. A Reconfigurable
Terahertz Metamaterial Absorber for
ranging between 1 and 1.03 to detect harmful gases such as methane, chloroform, etc., with a high
Gas Sensing Applications. Crystals sensitivity of 3.01 THz/RIU (Refractive Index Unit) and figure of merit (FoM) of 86. This research
2023, 13, 158. https://doi.org/ work is potentially suitable for biological sensing and chemical industry applications.
10.3390/cryst13020158
Keywords: terahertz; metamaterial absorber; sensitivity; refractive index sensing; Q-factor
Academic Editors: Kuo-Chih
Chuang, George Kenanakis,
Yanfeng Wang and Yongquan Liu

Received: 22 November 2022 1. Introduction

Revised: 9 January 2023
Metamaterials have become a hot research topic because of their unique properties
Accepted: 12 January 2023
such as negative permittivity, permeability, and refractive index, which are not found in
Published: 17 January 2023
naturally occurring materials. Metamaterials can also be used to absorb electromagnetic
radiation, and are known as metamaterial absorbers (MAs). MAs have wide potential
applications in many scopes such as terahertz (THz) sensing [1,2], wireless power trans-
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
fer [3], filters [4–6], etc. MAs are sub-wavelength periodic array elements, where each
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. element is known as a unit cell [7]. The unit cell of the MA consists of three layers where the
This article is an open access article bottom layer is made up of metal to block the transmission of electromagnetic (EM) waves,
distributed under the terms and the middle layer is a dielectric substrate responsible for the resonance effect and the top
conditions of the Creative Commons plane is metallic for the sake of impedance matching. The principle behind resonant MAs
Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// is to make the transmission and reflection zero at a particular frequency, thus increasing
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ the absorption rate [8]. The reflection can be minimized by making the impedance of MAs
4.0/). the same as the impedance of free space, i.e., 377 Ω. The absorption rate can be enhanced

Crystals 2023, 13, 158. https://doi.org/10.3390/cryst13020158 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/crystals

Crystals 2023, 13, 158 2 of 15

by designing the resonance structure appropriately, i.e., by forming a co-planar structure

and then vertically stacking the multiple layers [9]. Additionally, the narrow band MAs
with a reconfigurable absorption spectrum are best suitable for sensing applications as
compared to broadband sensors as they exhibit sharp resonant peaks which can provide
higher sensitivity and larger Figure of Merit (FoM). The high absorption rate indicates
high sensitivity due to the confinement of strong electric and magnetic fields between the
metallic layers.
MAs operating in the THz spectrum are called THz MAs (TMAs). A flexible tera-
hertz MA was reported in [10] with an absorption rate of 97% at 1.6 THz for refractive
index measurements. A nearly perfect metamaterial plasmonic absorber was theoretically
demonstrated in [11] with the absorption of 96% over the visible wavelength range. These
TMAs can be used for sensing different parameters. One of the important parameters
that can be sensed using the reconfigurable TMAs is the refractive index (RI) and the RI
sensor is of great importance in identifying chemicals and in biosensing. A refractive
index reconfigurable dual-band TMA composed of two identical square metallic patches
is designed in [12] which exhibits a sensitivity of 1.9010 THz/RIU and FoM of 229.04 for
biochemical sensing. A multiband reconfigurable TMA with multiple splits is proposed
in [13] for sensing and detecting applications with maximal sensitivities of 0.119 THz/RIU,
0.248 THz/RIU, and 0.662 THz/RIU. Ultra-sensitive TMA with a high Q-factor of 60.09 and
maximum RI sensitivity of 34.40% RIU−1 is simulated in [14] based on the Mach–Zehnder
interferometer. A sickle-shaped TMA for biosensing application is simulated in [15] with
sensitivity and FoM of 471 GHz/RIU and 94 RIU−1 , respectively. Ultra-narrow band
TMA for RI sensing application is designed in [16] with a sensitivity of 1.94 THz/RIU and
absorptivity of 99.49% and Q-factor of 637 at 2.44 THz. RI and temperature sensor-based
THz MA is designed in [17] with a sensitivity of 2.04 THz/RIU and 7144 nm/K respectively.
The other works related to the sensitivity of metamaterial absorbers are discussed in [18–24].
Cancer detection was conducted in [25,26] by using metamaterial absorbers. Various config-
urations such as elliptical nanoparticles and two triangular-shaped nanoparticles are also
implemented in [27] and [28], respectively. Recent research based on Anisotropic plasmonic
metasurfaces is also designed in [29]. Though most of the above-reported literature has
shown a high absorption rate, none of these works demonstrated the detection of harmful
and toxic gases using RI sensors with high sensitivity.
Aiming at the above fact, a novel design of a refractive index reconfigurable TMA
as a gas refractive index sensor is proposed in this paper for sensing applications. The
present work detects harmful and toxic gases by achieving a very narrow band with ultra-
high absorptivity of 99.75% at 3.045 THz and Q-factor and FoM of 86 and 87, respectively.
The novelty of this paper is that our design achieves ultra-narrow peak with very high
sensitivity as well as being polarization insensitive which is the main requirement for
sensing applications. Moreover, the equivalent circuit model of the proposed structure
is derived and it is shown that the simulation results are in good agreement with the
analytical ones. This proposed absorber can be used as an RI sensor with high sensitivity
of 3.01 THz/RIU whose refractive index ranges from 1.000 to 1.030 at 273 K. The reason
for choosing the RI between 1.0 and 1.030 is that most of the harmful gases have RI in this
range as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Refractive Index of some harmful gases [30].

Harmful and Toxic Gases Refractive Index

Carbon monoxide 1.000338
Chlorine 1.000773
Chloroform 1.001450
Methane 1.000444
Carbon Dioxide 1.00045
Helium 1.000036
Crystals 2023, 13, 158 3 of 15

The content of this research work is categorized into five sections which are as follows:
Section 2 elaborates the design concept of the proposed MA along with its absorption
characteristics followed by the description of the absorption mechanism Section 3. Section 4
illustrates the results and discussion along with the gas detection capability. Section 5
includes the conclusion of the work.

2. Structure Design Methodology

The proposed MA which comprises a top and bottom layer made up of gold (Au)
whose dielectric constant and conductivity are given by 6.9 and 4.09 × 107 S/m, respectively,
and separated by a polyimide dielectric spacer. The material is taken as gold for the ground
plane and for the top pattern to block the transmission and to match the impedance of free
space, respectively. Gold has been chosen as it has good conductivity at THz frequencies
and is widely preferred by researchers. The dielectric constant of polyimide is 3.5 + 0.28i [31]
and its height (t2 ) is taken as 7 µm. Polyimide is chosen as the dielectric substrate as it
possesses some optical properties. The average refractive indices varied from 1.5778 to
1.7427 and the thin layers of polyimide are known to develop an in-plane orientation,
resulting in measurable optical anisotropy. This optical anisotropy is responsible for the
variations in the moisture absorption, and electrical, thermal and mechanical properties
that ultimately affect the functionality and the reliability of microelectronic devices. It is
being used as a substrate for THz metamaterial applications. The top metallic layer consists
of an array of periodic unit cells of a concentric U-shaped pattern of a thickness of (t4 )
0.5 µm. The height (t1 ) of the continuous bottom metallic plane is 1.5 µm which should
be more than the skin depth to block the transmission. The dimension of periodic unit (p)
is taken as 180 µm × 180 µm, width (w) of U-shaped strips is 4 µm, gap (g) between the
strips is 10 µm. The proposed design is shown in Figure 1.

(a) Top view (b) Front view

Figure 1. Proposed absorber (a) Unit cell of patches with p = 180 µm, w = 4 µm and g = 10 µm.
(b) Front view of the absorber with t1 = 1.5 µm, t2 = 7 µm and t4 = 0.5 µm.

Concentric circular and square resonators are widely used to achieve good resonance
with a high absorption rate. In this work, concentric square resonators were modified to
U-shaped structures and it was observed that this pattern gives a very high absorption rate
as well as high sensitivity.

2.1. Absorption Characteristics

The absorption rate is calculated by using the following equation:

A = 1− | S11 |2 − | S21 |2 (1)

where A is the absorption coefficient, S11 is the reflection coefficient and S21 is transmission
coefficient. The bottom ground plane has been taken sufficiently thick to prevent the
transmission of electromagnetic waves, i.e., S21 = 0. So the above equation reduces to:

A = 1− | S11 |2 (2)
Crystals 2023, 13, 158 4 of 15

The Finite Element Method (FEM) is used to simulate this proposed unit cell of MA
and periodic boundary conditions along x and y axis and the wave source is plane EM wave
along the z direction was used in commercially available CST software. The absorption
characteristics are shown in Figure 2. It can be observed that this proposed THz MA shows
one narrow peak at 3.045 THz with a high absorption rate of 99.75%. The full width half
maximum (FWHM) of this proposed structure is found to be 0.035 THz which indicates a
strong frequency selectivity due to narrow bandwidth. Quality factor (Q-factor) is defined
as Q = Resonance frequency/FWHM which is calculated to be 87 which is quite high for
sensing applications.

Figure 2. Absorption spectrum of the proposed structure.

To show the accuracy of the FEM method, the structure proposed in [21] is simulated
using FEM and its results are compared as shown in Figure 3. There is a high similarity
between the proposed method and that simulated in [21]. Thus, the proposed method gives
accurate results.

Figure 3. Comparison between the absorptions of the metamaterial absorber reported in [21] and
our work.

2.2. Design Parameter Selection

The designed structure resonates at 3.045 THz, which lies in the THz band of 0.1 THz–
10 THz. Moreover, most of the sensors in the literature operate in the 0.1 to 4 THz range [32].
The corresponding wavelength for this frequency is around 100 µm. Thus, the dimension of
the periodic unit cell array was taken in the order of the wavelength. The other dimensions
Crystals 2023, 13, 158 5 of 15

were decided after performing the parametric analysis. The parametric analysis of the
proposed structure is carried out with respect to the width (w) of the U-shaped strips,
the height of the substrate (t2 ), periodicity (p) of the unit cell, and gap (g) between the
U-shaped strips. Parametric analysis was conducted by varying the different values of these
parameters and the optimum values were chosen to obtain the best results. Figure 4 shows
the variation of absorptivity with the width (w) of U-shaped strips. It can be concluded
that the absorption peak gets shifted left by increasing the width from 2 µm to 6 µm, i.e., by
increasing the width of the strips we will obtain the peak at a lower frequency. We have
chosen the optimum value of width as 4 µm because it results in a higher absorption rate
as well as narrow-band as compared to other values.

Figure 4. Absorption spectra obtained by varying the width of U-shaped strips.

Figure 5 shows the variation of the absorptivity with the thickness of the substrate (t2 ).
From this plot, it can be seen that the absorption peak shifted to a lower frequency with
the increasing height of the substrate from 6 µm to 9 µm. The thickness of the dielectric
substrate is responsible for the resonance effect, i.e., it traps the electromagnetic radiation
and dissipates it as dielectric losses. The optimum value of t2 is 7 µm as we obtain the
maximum absorption rate. At t2 = 6 µm, the peak is narrow, but the absorption rate is low.
So the thickness t2 is 7 µm.
Figure 6 shows the variation of absorptivity with the periodicity (p) of the unit cell.
By increasing the periodicity of the unit cell from 170 µm to 200 µm, the absorption band is
shifted to a lower frequency as the frequency is inversely proportional to the wavelength.
The periodicity of the unit cell is taken as 180 µm as it results in a higher absorption rate
compared to other values. The width of all the absorption bands is almost the same at all
the values of periodicity. Figure 7 shows the variation of absorption rate with the gap (g)
between the U-shaped strips. The optimum value of the gap is chosen as 10 µm as there is
a maximum absorption compared to other values.
Crystals 2023, 13, 158 6 of 15

Figure 5. Absorption spectra obtained by varying the height of the substrate.

Figure 6. Absorption spectra obtained by varying the periodicity of the unit cell.

The absorption peak of the proposed design does not shift with the polarization angle.
This can be seen in Figure 8.

2.3. Fabrication Process

As shown in Figure 9, the proposed design can be fabricated by using a 7 µm thick
polyimide layer with a 0.5 µm coated gold film. Ethanol and acetone were used to clean the
gold wafer as acetone volatilizes fast by pressing the two layers rapidly and also minimizes
air between the substance and the wafer surface. The substance gets absorbed into the
wafer and the sample is then spin-coated with positive liquid photoresist RZJ-304 and then
baked for 90 s at 100 °C. Then, the sample was taken to the photolithography processing
machine, where an array can be fabricated. The portion of the altered photoresist is washed
with a developer for 30 s after processing and the exposed metal was then etched with gold.
The metamaterial structures were obtained. Acetone was used to clean the sample and
remove the rest of the photoresist. Consequently, a 1.5 µm thick metallic gold layer was
produced on the other side of the polyimide layer using a vacuum evaporation process.
Terahertz frequency domain spectroscopy is used to characterize the reflection spectra.
Crystals 2023, 13, 158 7 of 15

Figure 7. Absorption spectra obtained by varying the gap between the U-shaped strips.

Figure 8. Absorption spectra as a function of polarization angle.

Figure 9. Process flow: (1) and (2) are the photolithography to define the metamaterial geometry,
while (3) and (4) show the wet etching and washing of the photoresist to fabricate the metamaterial
structures, and (5) is the evaporation of metallic substrate layer on another side of the polyimide layer.
Crystals 2023, 13, 158 8 of 15

3. Absorption Mechanism, Theory and Equivalent Circuit

The absorption mechanism can be explained by impedance matching theory. Since
the incident wave is not reflected back, the first layer consisting of the metallic patterns
should be designed in such a manner that their input impedance (Z11 ) matches that of the
free space impedance (Z0 ), i.e., Z11 = Z0 = 377 Ω. The plot of input impedance is shown
in Figure 10. Z11 was found to 369.5 + j31.66 Ω at resonance. The magnitude of Z11 was
calculated to 370.8 Ω which is close to the impedance of free space (377 Ω).

Figure 10. Impedance of the proposed structure.

3.1. µ Negative Metamaterial

The effective permeability ǫe f f and permeability µe f f can be calculated from Bloch
impedance and propagation constant with the free space wave number k o and wave
impedance Zo , respectively: [33]

µe f f = (γZB )/Ko Zo (3)

ǫe f f = (γZo )/Ko ZB (4)

whereas, γ is the complex propagation constant and ZB is the Bloch impedance and is
given by:
γ = cos−1 (( Z11 + Z22 )/2Z21 )/p (5)
ZB = B/(e jγp − A) (6)
whereas, p is the size of the unit cell,

A = Z11 /Z22 (7)

2
B = ( Z11 Z22 − Z21 )/Z21 (8)
The real parts of effective permittivity and effective permeability are obtained for the
proposed structure and are shown in Figure 11. The maximum absorption occurs when
the real part of permittivity is positive and the real part of permeability is negative. Thus,
the proposed structure behaves as single negative (SNG) metamaterial. Additionally, since
it has a negative value of permeability, so it is a µ negative (ENG) metamaterial and the
resonance is magnetic in nature.
Crystals 2023, 13, 158 9 of 15

Figure 11. Effective permittivity and permeability at resonance frequency.

3.2. Equivalent Circuit

In order to validate the performance of our proposed absorber, the equivalent circuit
model is presented. Resonators can be modeled as L-C series circuits [34]. Figure 12
shows the equivalent circuit model of the proposed absorber. The relationship between
the resonance frequency and the circuit’s parameters is given by Equation (9). From this
relationship, the parameters L and C are estimated.

1
fo = √ (9)
2π LC

The circuit parameters are taken as L = 0.8 nH, C = 0.0035 fF, and R = 800 Ohm.
The value of R is chosen so that the bandwidth of the equivalent circuit matches that of
the proposed design. The equivalent circuit response is shown in Figure 13, along with
the result of FEM. The mechanism behind the absorption is that the impedance of the free
space (≈377 Ω) should match the impedance of the equivalent circuit model. The total
impedance of the circuit model (ZTotal ) can be calculated as:

1
ZTotal = ( R||( jωL + ) + Z )|| Z (10)
jωC

Figure 12. The equivalent circuit model of the proposed absorber.

Crystals 2023, 13, 158 10 of 15

Figure 13. Comparison of Equivalent circuit and FEM method of the proposed absorber.

3.3. Current Distribution

The absorption mechanism can be further understood from the current distribution at
3.045 THz, shown in Figure 14. The current distribution plot shows the current flowing in
the arms of the U shaped resonators along the x direction is responsible for the resonance.
The gaps in the U shaped resonators result in the capacitive effect and prevent the formation
of circulating currents.

Figure 14. Current distribution plot at 3.045 THz.

4. Refractive Index Sensing

This designed MA can be used for sensing the surrounding medium’s refractive index
in the range from 1.00 to 1.03. Thus, it can be used to detect toxic and harmful gases as the
refractive index of toxic gases. This proposed structure is suitable for this application due
to its stable narrow band-perfect absorption characteristics.

4.1. Sensitivity of the Design

Figure 15 shows the variation of absorption rate with the refractive index from 1.00 to
1.03 in which the absorption peaks shift to lower frequency with the increase in the refractive
index of the surrounding medium. Figure 16 shows the plot of resonance frequency with
Crystals 2023, 13, 158 11 of 15

respect to the refractive index. The sensitivity of this proposed MA is calculated by using
the following equation:
∆f
S= (11)
∆n
where ∆ f is the frequency shift and ∆n is the change in refractive index. From the plot,
it can be clearly seen that the sensitivity is 3.01 THz/RIU which is the slope of the curve.
Q-factor and FoM were calculated using the equations:

fr
Q= (12)
FW HM
S
FoM = (13)
FW HM
where f r is the resonance frequency and S is the sensitivity. The Q-factor and FoM were
found to be 87 and 86, respectively, which is suitable for the sensor. Since the sensitivity is
high so it can be widely used for sensing applications. The linear relationship between the
resonance frequency ( f r ) and the refractive index (n) is obtained using curve fitting and is
given by the equation.
f = −3.01071n + 6.05495 (14)

Figure 15. Absorption spectra as a function of the refractive index of the surrounding medium.

Figure 16. The position of the peak as a function of the refractive index of the surrounding medium.
Crystals 2023, 13, 158 12 of 15

The absorption band, which is shown in Figure 10, is insensitive to variation in

polarization angle up to 60°. Since the structure is only symmetrical in the y-direction,
varying the polarization angle from 0° to 60° at an interval of 15° does not significantly
change the absorption spectra up to 60°.

4.2. Gas Detection Using the Proposed Absorber

The proposed sensor is then studied for its ability to detect harmful gases. The
absorption spectrum of the harmful gases, i.e., carbon monoxide, chlorine, chloroform,
methane, carbon dioxide, and helium are obtained using the proposed sensor shown
in Figure 17 (zoomed version is shown in the inset of the figure). Methane is a highly
inflammable gas and is extremely important to detect in coal mines. Chloroform is a toxic
gas that can lead to unconsciousness when inhaled and can also cause cancer.
From the absorption spectrum, the resonance frequency of carbon monoxide, chlo-
rine, chloroform, methane, carbon dioxide, and helium is found to be 3.04450428 THz,
3.04450297 THz, 3.040622 THz, 3.0445081 THz, 3.04450428 THz, and 3.04450087 THz and
correspondingly absorption rate was found to be 99.931 %, 97.937%, 99.956%, 99.67%,
99.422%, and 99.74%, respectively. Though there is not much difference in the resonance
frequency in the THz range, the shift is significant in the MHz frequency range (approxi-
mately 1.31 MHz between Chlorine and Chloroform). Combined with the differences in the
absorption rate at different frequencies, the gases can be identified effectively. Additionally,
machine learning models can be trained with the absorption spectrum data to identify the
gases accurately, which will be considered in future work. Thus, this proposed sensor can
be effectively used to sense gases based on their refractive index. Clearly, it can be seen that
this proposed MA can absorb the incident wave perfectly and can also find its application
in sensing a minute change in the refractive index of the surrounding.

Figure 17. Absorption vs Frequency for carbon monoxide, chlorine, chloroform, methane, carbon
dioxide, and helium.

Table 2 compares the performance of this proposed RI sensor with those in the liter-
ature in terms of various parameters. We can observe from the table that this proposed
design has some advantages over those reported in the literature, such as high absorption
rate, high sensitivity, and high performance.
Crystals 2023, 13, 158 13 of 15

Table 2. Comparison of the proposed structure with those reported in the literature.

Resonance
Range Absorption Gas Eq.
Design Frequency Sensitivity FWHM (THz) FoM
of R.I Rate Detection ckt
(THz)
Ref. [35] 1 to 1.39 99% 2.249 23.7 GHz/µm 0.102 2.94 No No
Ref. [36] 1 to 1.8 99.8% 1.8 187.5 GHz/RIU - 223 No No
Ref. [37] 1 to 1.8 99.6% 2.26 360 GHz/RIU - 431 No No
0.119 THz/RIU,
Ref. [38] 1 to 2 - 0.64, 1.94, 2.67 0.248 THz/RIU, - - No No
0.662 THz/RIU
Ref. [39] 1.2 to 2 96.4% - 34.40% RIU−1 - 19.35 No No
Ref. [31] 1 to 1.8 - 0.6376 163 GHz/RIU 0.061 2.67 No No
Ref. [40] 1 to 1.08 99.3% 3.62 and 3.814 3 and 3.59 THz/RIU 0.07 and 0.0027 1329.63 Yes No
Proposed 1.000 to
99.75% 3.045 3.01 THz/RIU 0.035 86 Yes Yes
Work 1.030

5. Conclusions
In summary, a highly sensitive refractive index reconfigurable terahertz metamaterial
absorber is designed to sense the refractive index of toxic gases whose refractive index
varies from 1.00 to 1.03. Using numerical simulations based on the finite element method,
we demonstrated that the absorption rate is 99.75% at the resonance frequency of 3.045 THz.
The proposed structure was also verified through its equivalent circuit model and the
results are in good agreement with the simulated ones. Since the FWHM is 0.035 THz with
high sensitivity of 3.01 THz/RIU and Q-factor of 87, this absorber can be widely used as
a refractive index sensor of toxic gases. The structure is symmetrical in the y-direction
so it is polarization insensitive up to an incidence angle of 60°. The parametric analysis
was also studied and the optimum values of all the design parameters were chosen for the
maximum absorption rate.
Author Contributions: Conceptualization, S., S.P. and B.A.; methodology, B.A.; software, S. and S.P.;
validation, B.A. and A.S.; investigation, S., S.P. and B.A.; resources, N.B., P.T. and B.A.; data curation,
B.A., A.S. and P.T.; writing—original draft preparation, S., S.P. and B.A.; supervision, B.A. and N.B.;
project administration, B.A. and N.B.; formal analysis: N.B. and P.T.; funding acquisition: N.B. and
P.T.; visualization: B.A., N.B. and P.T.; writing—review and editing: N.B., P.T. and B.A. All authors
have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This work was supported in part by the Framework Agreement between University of
Pitesti (Romania) and King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (Thailand), in part
by an International Research Partnership “Electrical Engineering—Thai French Research Center (EE-
TFRC)” under the project framework of the Lorraine Université d’Excellence (LUE) in cooperation
between Université de Lorraine and King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok,
and in part by the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) under Senior Research Scholar
Program under Grant No. N42A640328.
Data Availability Statement: Not applicable.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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