Double Fano resonances due to interplay of electric and magnetic plasmon modes in planar plasmonic structure with high sensing sensitivity

Double Fano resonant characteristics are investigated in planar plasmonic structure by embedding a metallic nanorod in symmetric U-shaped split ring resonators, which are caused by a strong interplay between a broad bright mode and narrow dark modes. The bright mode is resulted from the nanorod electric dipole resonance while the dark modes originate from the magnetic dipole induced by LC resonances. The overlapped dual Fano resonances can be decomposed to two separate ones by adjusting the coupling length between the nanorod and U-shaped split ring resonators. Fano resonances in the designed structure exhibit high refractive-index sensing sensitivity and figure of merit, which have potential applications in single or double-wavelength sensing in the near-infrared region. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America