Planar waveguide with left-handed material guiding film for refractometry applications.

A symmetric 3-layer slab waveguide with a left-handed material as a guiding layer is examined analytically for cover refractive index detection. The TM mode dispersion relation of the proposed waveguide is investigated. The sensitivity of the proposed sensor to changes in the cover refractive index and the power flowing within each layer are presented. Some unusual features are found; for example, the sensitivity of the proposed sensor is negative. Moreover, the sensitivity improvement compared with the conventional 3-layer waveguide sensor is approximately a factor of 6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]