An Interdigital ELC Resonator Based Microwave Sensor for Material Sensing Applications

In this work, a compact microwave sensor with high sensitivity and high-quality factor for liquid sensing applications is presented. The proposed sensor comprises of an Interdigital ELC (Electric-Inductive-Capacitive) resonator on a metal backed substrate. The substrate material is PLA (Polylactic acid) of dielectric constant 3.47 and loss tangent 0.073 for typical applications where 3D printed structure needs to be incorporated. The proposed sensor gives a transmission null at 7.07 GHz with no load condition and is used for sensitivity analysis. The simulated results reveal a high sensitivity of 1.57% in olive oil medium and henceforth is suitable for many sensing applications.