524 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 27, NO.
5, MAY 2017
Design of SRR-Based Microwave Sensor for
Characterization of Magnetodielectric Substrates
Muhammed Shafi K T, M. Arif Hussain Ansari, Abhishek Kumar Jha, Member, IEEE,
and M. Jaleel Akhtar, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract— A novel split-ring resonator (SRR)-based microwave
sensor for accurately determining the real parts of the complex
permittivity and the complex permeability of magnetodielectric
composites is proposed. The proposed sensor is realized using
the microstrip technology, where two SRRs coupled magnetically
with the microstrip line are printed on two sides of the line. The
sensor is designed using the full-wave electromagnetic solver and
its equivalent circuit model is obtained. A numerical model of
the proposed sensor is developed for extracting the magnetic
and the dielectric properties of the sample under test in terms
of change in resonance frequency after loading the device with
the test specimen. The proposed methodology is validated by
fabricating the sensor on RT/duroid 6006 substrate and testing
various standard dielectric and magnetodielectric samples viz.
Teflon, Poly vinyl chloride, Plexiglas, Polyethylene, Carbonyl
iron, Ni0.6 Co0.4 Fe2 O4 , and Cobalt (30%)/Polystyrene composite
in S-band. The measured relative permeability and the relative
permittivity of the test specimens are found to be in close
agreement with their values available in literature with maximum
error of less than 8%.
Index Terms— Magnetodielectric, material characterization,
permeability, permittivity, planar sensor, split-ring
resonators (SRRs).
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HE demand for compactness in design of microwave
devices such as antennas, filters, resonators, and mixers,
is increasing the challenges in RF engineering. Since the
devices used for wireless communication technologies viz.
WiFi, WiMAX, LTE, and GSM are portable in nature, they
must be more compact in size for easy accessibility, which
actually helps in saving the energy consumed by such devices.
The magnetodielectric substrates, having both the relative
permittivity and permeability values higher than one, are
recently being used in the microwave industry to design
compact RF devices [1]. The extra compactness is achieved
using the magnetodielectric substrate having higher value
of the relative permeability, which gives one more degree
of freedom to miniaturize the dimensions of the microwave
circuits as compared to the pure dielectric substrates. However,
to design a microwave circuit or device using these cus-
tomized substrates, precise knowledge of their electromagnetic
Manuscript received October 25, 2016; revised January 6, 2017; accepted
February 15, 2017. Date of publication April 24, 2017; date of current
version May 8, 2017. This work was supported by BIRAC-SRISTI GYTI
awards 2015 through the technological edge category under Grant
BIRAC/EE/2016205. (Corresponding author: M. Shafi K T.)
M. S. K T, A. K. Jha, and M. J. Akhtar are with the Department
of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India (e-mail:
kt.muhammedshafi@gmail.com; akjha.RF@gmail.com; mjakhtar@iitk.ac.in).
M. A. H. Ansari and M. J. Akhtar are with the Materials
Science Programme, IIT Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India (e-mail:
aarifhussain07@gmail.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2017.2690873
1531-1309 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
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properties is the prerequisite. Since most of the wireless com-
munication devices operate in very narrowband of frequencies,
the microwave resonant characterization methods are well
suited for retrieving the accurate material properties [2], [3].
Among various resonant techniques, the microstrip or coplanar
waveguide-based microwave sensors have become quite popu-
lar in recent years due to their low cost, lightweight, and ease
in fabrication. Recently, a number of microwave planar sensors
based on the split-ring resonator (SRR) [4], complimentary
SRR (CSRR) [5]–[8], and interdigital capacitor [9] have
been reported in literature for determination of the dielectric
properties of material under test (MUT). The SRR structures
are preferred for sensor design due to their smaller dimension
and higher sensitivity compared to the conventional quarter-
wavelength transmission line resonators at lower frequency
range of microwave frequency band. However, to the best
of the author’s knowledge, the microstrip-coupled SRR-based
sensors are currently unavailable for characterization of the
magnetodielectric substrates.
In this letter, a microstrip-coupled SRR-based resonant
sensor is proposed for the simultaneous extraction of the real
parts of the complex permittivity and the complex permeability
of MUTs. The novel sensor is designed using the CST
Microwave Studio, and the equivalent circuit model is obtained
using the Advanced Design System (ADS). A numerical
model of the proposed sensor is developed for characterization
of the magnetodielectric substrates. The device is fabricated
using the microstrip technology on a 1.27-mm-thick RT/duroid
6006 substrate. Various standard reference samples are tested
to validate the proposed sensor in S-band near 2.5-GHz
frequency.
II. D ESIGN OF P ROPOSED S ENSOR
Microwave characterization of magnetodielectric substrates
is made possible by interaction of the magnetic and the electric
fields of the RF sensor with the MUT, which is required
for the retrieval of permeability and permittivity of MUT,
respectively. The SRR structures are capable of confining
maximum electric field in their dielectric capacitive gap, where
the MUT can be kept in order to provide better sensitivity
for smaller changes in the dielectric property by capacitive
sensing technique. However, it is interesting to note that the
SRR structures also confine magnetic field on their conductive
loop, giving a space for relative permeability calculation by
inductive sensing technique. The proposed magnetodielectric
sensor is designed using two SRR structures, which are printed
on opposite ends of the microstrip line as shown in Fig. 1
where various dimensions are also provided. It is to be noted
that the location and intensity of the electric and the magnetic
fields on SRR are subjected to the coupling type.
Fig. 2 shows variations of the electric and the magnetic
fields in two SRRs of the proposed sensor at designated
frequencies. From Fig. 2(b) and (a), it can be observed that
K T et al.: DESIGN OF SRR-BASED MICROWAVE SENSOR 525

TABLE I
VALUES OF L UMPED E LEMENTS OF M ODIFIED E QUIVALENT C IRCUIT

Fig. 1. Structure of proposed sensor with the dimensions, d = 80 mm,

W = 40 mm, d1 = 4.95 mm, d2 = 10 mm, d3 = 5.9 mm, d4 = 10 mm,
g1 = 0.6 mm, g2 = 0.2 mm, k = 13.2 mm, wd = 0.3 mm, and g = 0.3 mm.
Fig. 4. Comparison of transmission characteristics from circuit theory,
EM simulation, and measurement.

Fig. 2. Field variation at frequency f r0m = 2.34 GHz. (a) Electric field
(b) Magnetic field, field variation at frequency f r0e = 2.74 GHz. (c) Electric
field. (d) Magnetic field.

Fig. 5. Variation of resonant frequency for different permittivity and

permeability values. The variation of relative permeability is between 1 and 2
as shown in the inset.

Fig. 3. (a) Equivalent circuit model for proposed sensor. (b) Modified
equivalent circuit model.

the SRR coupled to the microstrip line has maximum magnetic

field variation and almost zero electric field at the center of the
farthest edge from the microstrip line. So this SRR unit can be
used for testing of the magnetic properties of MUT. Similarly,
Fig. 6. (a) Measurement setup. (b) Fabricated prototype.
from Fig. 2(c) and (d), it can be seen that the electric field
variation is maximum in the SRR gap, which can conveniently
be used for testing of the dielectric properties of MUT. simulation, the CST electromagnetic (EM) simulation, and the
measurement carried out using a network analyzer.
A. Theoretical Model
As shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the SRR structures in the B. Numerical Model
proposed sensor are magnetically coupled to the microstrip The proposed sensor is numerically simulated using the full-
line. Fig. 3(a) shows the equivalent circuit model of the wave EM solver, the CST Microwave Studio with various
proposed sensor without considering the losses in the sensor MUTs having wide range of their relative permeability μr
design. In the proposed equivalent circuit model, each SRR and relative permittivity εr . The change in resonant frequency
unit is represented by the combination of inductor (L i ) and corresponding to each SRR unit with respect to the variation
capacitor (Ci ), where i = a, b, 1, 2. These LC-tank circuits in the μr and εr of MUTs are extracted from the recorded
are coupled to the microstrip line with mutual coupling values transmission coefficient (S21 ) data and then plotted in Fig. 5.
M1 and M2. The microstrip line in the proposed sensor design Using the curve fitting tool of the Origin9.1, the empirical
is modeled with an inductor (L) and capacitor (C). Since it is relations are formulated for calculation of μr at 2.34 GHz
difficult to extract the value of mutual coupling in microstrip and εr at 2.74 GHz as given in the following:
circuits, the equivalent circuit in Fig. 3(a) is transformed into  
−1 f re − 1.61387
the circuit shown in Fig. 3(b) [10]. The values of the lumped εr = ln (1)
elements in the modified equivalent circuit diagram, Fig. 3(b), 0.05583 1.1992
 
are extracted using the ADS, and are tabulated in Table I. −1 f rm − 2.16467
μr = ln . (2)
Fig. 4 shows the comparison of S21 plot using the ADS circuit 0.73927 0.39469

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526
M EASURED D ATA FOR D IFFERENT M AGNETODIELECTRIC AND D IELECTRIC M ATERIALS
Fig. 7. (a) Measured S21 plot for different dielectric samples at 2.74 GHz.
(b) Measured S21 plot for different magnetic samples at 2.34 GHz.
The curve fitting function is chosen according to the avail-
able set of data to be fit, and the final expressions are obtained
based on the criterion of least error between the available data
and the selected curve fitting function [5].
III. M EASUREMENT AND R ESULT
The proposed sensor is fabricated on 1.27-mm-thick
RT/duroid 6006 substrate, and two female type SubMinia-
ture version A connectors are soldered to match the 50-
microstrip line and feed the RF signal from the vector network
analyzer (VNA). The fabricated prototype sensor is shown
in Fig. 6(b), while Fig. 6(a) shows the measurement setup used
for material characterization. The resonant frequency value for
each sample is obtained from the transmission curve measured
using the VNA shown in Fig. 6(b) that was calibrated with
the Short, Open, Load and Through calibration standard.
Fig. 7(a) and (b) shows the variation in measured S21 (dB)
data for various MUTs at 2.74 and 2.34 GHz, respectively. The
measured resonant frequency is used to calculate the μr and εr
of MUT using the developed empirical formulae (1) and (2).
Each measurement is repeated at least five times to check the
variance of the measured data points, which is found to be
in the admissible range; however, the mean value is taken.
The measured relative permittivity and relative permeability
data of each sample are tabulated in Table II, which are then
compared with the reference values available in literature, and
their percentage error are given in columns 4 and 7 of Table II,
respectively.
IV. C ONCLUSION
An attractive microwave planar resonant sensor based on
SRR structure has been designed, fabricated, and tested for
the characterization of magnetodielectric substrates commonly
being used for miniaturization of circuits. The characteristics
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IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 27, NO. 5, MAY 2017
TABLE II
of the fabricated sensor possess a good match with theo-
retically developed equivalent circuit model and the numer-
ical model. The empirical formulae have been developed
for extracting the magnetic and dielectric properties of test
samples. The proposed technique has been validated by mea-
suring various dielectric and magnetodielectric samples. The
maximum error in the measured permittivity and permeability
values of all these samples with their reference data is found
to be typically less than 8%.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Azizurrahman Ansari for
providing the magnetic samples.
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