Thin-film dielectric characterization by bound state in the continuum in high contrast grating

Subwavelength high contrast grating (HCG) is renowned for its remarkable ability to produce sharp optical resonance, known as the bound state in the continuum (BIC). Due to the strong surface field enhancement, the resonant wavelength and quality factor (Q factor) are highly sensitive to the dielectric properties of the surrounding medium. We propose utilizing this extraordinary phenomenon for thin-film dielectric characterization based on a film-substrate-grating configuration. By optimizing the geometrical parameters to control the cross-interference between guided modes in the grating and self-interference of propagating wave in the substrate slab, an accidental BIC with a Q factor reaching 10⁴ is excited. Using this BIC, two retrieval methods based on contour mapping of resonant wavelength and Q factor are proposed to extract the complex permittivity (εf) of the film under test. It has been demonstrated that with a film thickness as thin as 10^-5 times the grating period, the error in the retrieved Re[εf] is below 2%, and that of Im[εf] is below 10%. The proposed design is a strong candidate for non-destructive dielectric characterization of thin films with thicknesses below one-thousandth of the operating wavelength. This characterization technique can facilitate the development of high-frequency devices for the 6 G high-speed communication.