Enhanced Optical Sensing
with Metastructures

Optical sensing is a widespread technology that utilises light to measure and detect a wide range of physical, chemical, and biological parameters, offering unparalleled accuracy and versatility in numerous applications. However, optical sensors are often unspecific and typically rely on measuring light intensities. This can cause unreliable situations, such as a smoke sensor that signals when water vapour reaches the sensor during cooking. Besides concerns of reliability, measuring an intensity change, often at a wavelength that is economically favourable, is often not very specific. Gas sensors, for instance, are typically not sensitive to a specific gas, but to many gasses. It is a gas-selective filter in front of the sensing material that provides the selectiveness of the sensor. In our research, we aim to create new sensing concepts using on the one hand reminiscent features of functionalized sensing materials in order to create specificity,[1] and on the other hand we aim to enhance the sensing sensitivity of optical sensors by integrating functional materials with photonic metastructures.[2]

[1] Peeters, D., Geneste, G.,Gomez Rivas, J., van Mechelen, J.L.M., Broad-band optical properties of yttrium hydride, 49th International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz) (2024).
[2] Rivas, J.G., Ter Huurne, S.E.T., Van Hoof, N.J.J., Peeters, D.B.L., and Van Mechelen, J.L.M. Experimental Determination of the Green's function with double probe THz near-field microscopy, IEEE Photonics Conference, 1-2 (2023)