Hyperbolic dispersion metasurfaces for molecular biosensing

Abstract

Sensor technology has become increasingly crucial in medical research and clinical diagnostics to directly detect small numbers of low-molecular-weight biomolecules relevant for lethal diseases. In recent years, various technologies have been developed, a number of them becoming core label-free technologies for detection of cancer biomarkers and viruses. However, to radically improve early disease diagnostics, tracking of disease progression and evaluation of treatments, today’s biosensing techniques still require a radical innovation to deliver high sensitivity, specificity, diffusion-limited transport, and accuracy for both nucleic acids and proteins. In this review, we discuss both scientific and technological aspects of hyperbolic dispersion metasurfaces for molecular biosensing. Optical metasurfaces have offered the tantalizing opportunity to engineer wavefronts while its intrinsic nanoscale patterns promote tremendous molecular interactions and selective binding. Hyperbolic dispersion metasurfaces support high-k modes that proved to be extremely sensitive to minute concentrations of ultralow-molecular-weight proteins and nucleic acids.

Hyperbolic metamaterials: fusing artificial structures to natural 2D materials

“…HMMs have been investigated for the use as ultrasensitive optical sensors and broadband absorbers [23,127,[183][184][185]. The hyperbolic dispersion of HMMs supports large wave vectors that have a large momentum and can propagate inside or on the surface of HMMs.…”

All-Metal Terahertz Metamaterial Absorber and Refractive Index Sensing Performance

“…Metamaterials are new artificial materials that are periodically arranged according to certain subwavelength dimensions [1,2]. Owing to their unique properties of perfect absorption, perfect transmission, and stealth, metamaterials show promising applications in sensors [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], absorbers [12,13], imaging [14,15], etc. Among them, in biomolecular sensing, metamaterial devices are spurring unprecedented interest as a diagnostic protocol for cancer and infectious diseases [10,11].…”

“…Owing to their unique properties of perfect absorption, perfect transmission, and stealth, metamaterials show promising applications in sensors [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], absorbers [12,13], imaging [14,15], etc. Among them, in biomolecular sensing, metamaterial devices are spurring unprecedented interest as a diagnostic protocol for cancer and infectious diseases [10,11]. Terahertz radiation [16] refers to the frequency range of 0.1 to 10 THz, between the microwave and infrared bands.…”

“…Therefore, designing an absorber with high sensitivity is an urgent problem to be solved. Optical dispersion metasurfaces can be used for the detection of ultralow-molecular-weight molecules with extremely low concentrations on the whole surface array [10,11]. Terahertz radiation can achieve the local enhancement of electromagnetic field in the metasurface, thus achieving high sensitivity.…”

Dual-Band, Polarization-Insensitive, Ultrathin and Flexible Metamaterial Absorber Based on High-Order Magnetic Resonance

“…Metamaterial absorbers (MAs) have gained much attention because of their potential applications in sensing [1][2][3][4], imaging [5,6], and energy harvesting [7,8]. The first MA was introduced by Landy et al in 2008, and consisted of two metallic elements on two sides of a dielectric layer [9].…”