Microwave Polarization Sensing for Dielectric Materials Based on a Twisted Dual-Layer Meta-Surface

Materials (Basel). 2022 Sep 26;15(19):6655. doi: 10.3390/ma15196655.

Abstract

A microwave sensor is proposed based on a chiral twisted dual-layer meta-surface. Elliptical angle and polarization rotation angle are used to characterize the different dielectric constants of materials. The dielectric films consisting of polydimethylsiloxane and barium titanate with volume fractions 0%, 10%, 15%, 20% are prepared and tested for a proof of concept. The measured results show that the Q factors of polarization rotation angle and elliptical angle peak are 11.85 when the volume fraction of barium titanate is 20%, which is 75.5% higher than 6.75 of the transmission resonance peak, and the figures of merit of the polarization rotation angle and elliptical angle peak are 0.99 and 0.86, which are 73.7% and 50.9% higher than the 0.57 of transmission resonance, respectively. Compared to the resonance sensing method, polarization sensing not only has a better Q factor and figure of merit while maintaining similar sensitivity, but also obtains more characterization information due to the double-parameter sensing, which provide a new idea for the development of high-sensitivity microwave sensors.

Keywords: dielectric materials; meta-surface; microwave sensor; polarization conversion; polarization sensing.