Generating and manipulating higher order Fano resonances in dual-disk ring plasmonic nanostructures

In this article, we investigate higher order (quadrupolar, octupolar, hexadecapolar, and triakontadipolar) Fano resonances generated in disk ring (DR) silver plasmonic nanostructures. We find that the higher order Fano resonances are generated when the size of the disk is reduced and falls into a certain range. With dual-disk ring (DDR) nanostructures, a rich set of tunable Fano line shapes is provided. More specifically, we report our observations on the optical behavior of the DDRs including asymmetric cases either in two disks with different sizes or their asymmetric locations inside the ring. In the case of symmetric dual-disk ring (SDDR) nanostructures, we demonstrate that the quadrupolar and the hexadecapolar Fano resonances are suppressed, which can reduce the cross-talk in spectroscopic measurements, while the octupolar and the triakontadipolar Fano resonances are enhanced. The potential of using the studied plasmonic nanostructures as biochemical sensors is evaluated with the figure of merit (FOM) and the contrast ratio (CR). The values of the FOM and the CR achieved using the triakontadipolar Fano resonance in the SDDR are 17 and 57%, respectively. These results indicate that the SDDRs could be developed into a high-performance biochemical sensor in the visible wavelength range.