Terahertz Sensing for R/S Chiral Ibuprofen via All-Dielectric Metasurface with Higher-Order Resonance

Abstract

A terahertz (THz) all-dielectric metasurface with crescent cylinder arrays for chiral drug sensing has been demonstrated. Through the multipole expansion method, we theoretically found that breaking the symmetry of the metasurface can excite higher-order resonance modes and provide stronger anisotropy as well as enhanced sensitivity for the surroundings, which gives a better sensing performance than lower-order resonance. Based on the frequency shift and transmittance at higher-order resonance, we carried out the sensing experiments on (R)-(−)-ibuprofen and (S)-(+)-ibuprofen solution on the surface of this metasurface sensor. We were able to monitor the concentrations of ibuprofen solutions, and the maximum sensitivity reached 60.42 GHz/mg. Furthermore, we successfully distinguished different chiral molecules such as (R)-(−)-ibuprofen and (S)-(+)-ibuprofen in the 5 μL trace amount of samples. The maximum differentiation was 18.75 GHz/mg. Our analysis confirms the applicability of this crescent all-dielectric metasurface to enhanced sensing and detection of chiral molecules, which provides new paths for the identification of biomolecules in a trace amount.