Fano-Resonance in Hybrid Metal-Graphene Metamaterial and Its Application as Mid-Infrared Plasmonic Sensor

Fano resonances in nanostructures have attracted widespread research interests in the past few years for their potential applications in sensing, switching and nonlinear optics. In this paper, a mid-infrared Fano resonance in a hybrid metal-graphene metamaterial is studied. The hybrid metamaterial consists of a metallic grid enclosing with graphene nanodisks. The Fano resonance arises from the coupling of graphene and metallic plasmonic resonances and it is sharper than plasmonic resonances in pure graphene nanostructures. The resonance strength can be enhanced by increasing the number of graphene layers. The proposed metamaterial can be employed as a high-performance mid-infrared plasmonic sensor with an unprecedented sensitivity of about 7.93 mu m/RIU and figure of merit (FOM) of about 158.7.