Metamaterial Inspired Planar RF Sensors for Nearfield Imaging, Biosensing and Humanitarian Applications

The planar technology has widely been used to develop various types of RF sensors in the last few decades. In recent years, the planar RF sensors integrated the basic unit cell of the metamaterial such as the split ring resonator (SRR), and the complementary split ring resonators (CSRR) has gained much attention due to their high sensitivity as compared to the conventional sensors. The high sensitivity in these types of sensors is basically obtained due to enhancement of the electromagnetic field in certain region so that the interaction of the test material with the EM field is maximized. The high sensitivity of these types of sensors is advantageous in numerous humanitarian and biomedical applications such as for detecting low-level adulteration in various edible products, for quality assessment of medical grade solutions, and for detecting glucose level in blood etc. These types of electrically small RF sensors have also recently been utilized for near-field sub-surface imaging to detect cracks and various types of defects inside a structure. This talk will provide a general overview of metamaterial inspired planar RF sensors and their applications in the field of near-field imaging and sensing.