Dielectric Sensing in Epsilon-Near-Zero Narrow Waveguide Channels

We exploit here the dramatic field enhancement caused by energy squeezing and tunneling (i.e., 'supercoupling') in metamaterial-inspired ultranarrow waveguide channels with near zero effective permittivity in order to sense small permittivity variations in a tiny object. The supercoupling effect is accurately modeled analytically and closed form expressions are derived to describe the presence of defects or permittivity perturbations along the channel. Applications for tailoring its pass-band frequency and for high-Q sensing are proposed at microwave frequencies.