Invited Article: Terahertz microfluidic chips sensitivity-enhanced with a few arrays of meta-atoms

Serita, Kazunori; Matsuda, Eiki; Okada, Kōsuke; Murakami, Hironaru; Kawayama, Iwao; Tonouchi, Masayoshi

doi:10.1063/1.5007681

Cited by 64 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 43 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Moreover, the proposed design has a wide scope of applications, as it can be retrospectively adopted in all the standard THz-TDS systems. The measurement steps are easy and the detection SNR is high compared to the near-field microfluidic MM chips [28], [29]. The proposed device can be fabricated on conventional quartz or silicon substrates by the standard microfabrication procedures.…”

Section: Experimental Details and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, there is great scope to optimize the sensing performance. For example, the near-field microfluidic MM chips (employing the near-field coupling between the metal-atoms and the local THz emission) were proposed to achieve small volume liquid sample detection [28], [29]. However, for this approach, a high-performance nonlinear optical crystal and an additional THz pulse detection module are needed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Terahertz Microfluidic Metamaterial Biosensor for Sensitive Detection of Small-Volume Liquid Samples

Zhang

Chen

et al. 2019

IEEE Trans. THz Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Metamaterial assisted terahertz (THz) label-free bio-sensing has promising applications. However, the sensitive THz detection of highly absorptive liquid samples remains challenging. Here, we present a novel multi-microfluidic-channel metamaterial biosensor (MMCMMB) for highly sensitive THz sensing of small volume liquid samples. The multi-channels are set mostly in the strong electric field enhancement area of the metamaterial, which significantly decreases the liquid amount and enhances interaction between the sensing targets and the THz wave (thus increasing the sensitivity). The sensing results of isopropyl alcohol (IPA)-water mixtures and bovine serum albumin (BSA) solutions based on the bow-tie array metamaterial with multi-channels demonstrate the effectiveness of this proposed design and the great potential in THz bio-sensing. This design has the advantages of being highly sensitive, label-free, cost-effective, easy to operate and only needing a tiny liquid volume. Thus our device provides a robust route for metamaterial assisted THz label-free bio-sensing of liquid-based substances. IndexTerms-Terahertz spectroscopy, biomedical spectroscopy, metamaterial, microfluidic.

show abstract

Section: Experimental Details and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terahertz Microfluidic Metamaterial Biosensor for Sensitive Detection of Small-Volume Liquid Samples

Zhang

Chen

et al. 2019

IEEE Trans. THz Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Selective sensing of chemicals at metamaterial hotspot has also been reported. Instead of covering the whole metasurface with the fluidic chamber, the chemical sensor with liquid only flowing through sensitive hotspot has also been demonstrated in Figure f . The most effective way to diminish the water absorption is to reduce the optical interaction length, which is the thickness of the microfluidic system.…”

Section: Metamaterials In Chemical Sensing Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leveraging of MEMS Technologies for Optical Metamaterials Applications

Ren

Chang

et al. 2019

Advanced Optical Materials

177

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Tunable metamaterial devices have experienced explosive growth in the past decades, driving the traditional electromagnetic (EM) devices to evolve into diversified functionalities by manipulating EM properties such as amplitude, frequency, phase, polarization, and propagation direction. However, one of the bottlenecks of these rapidly developed metamaterials technologies is limited tunability caused by the intrinsic frequency‐dependent property of exotic tunable material. To overcome such limitation, the microelectromechanical system (MEMS) enabling micro/nanoscale manipulation is developed to actively control “meta‐atom” in terahertz and infrared region, which brings frequency‐scalable tunability and complementary metal‐oxide‐semiconductor‐compatible functional meta‐devices. Beyond tunability, novel chemical sensing platforms of molecular identification and dynamic monitoring of the biochemical process can be achieved by integrating micro/nanofluidics channels with metamaterial resonators. Additionally, incorporating metamaterial absorbers with MEMS resonators brings another research interest in MEMS zero‐power devices and radiation sensors. Furthermore, moving from 2D metasurfaces to 3D metamaterials, enhanced EM properties like novel resonance mode, giant chirality, and 3D manipulation reinforce the application in biochemical and physical sensors as well as functional meta‐devices, paving the way to realize multi‐functional sensing and signal processing on a hybrid smart‐sensor microsystem for booming healthcare, environmental monitoring, and the Internet of Things applications.

show abstract

“…The chip operates on the basis of the near-field coupling between the SRRs and the local emission of a point-like THz source that is generated in the process of optical rectification in the NLOC at the sub-wavelength scale. The liquid solution flowing into the microchannel modifies the resonance frequency in the THz transmission spectra, and we can detect femtomolar levels of solute in sub-nanoliter amounts of liquid solutions [29]. However, the meta-structures have not yet been optimized and the sensitivity can be improved by using other meta-surfaces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conversely, meta-atoms excited via the near-field emission of THz waves have not yet been investigated. We have previously reported typical LC (resonant circuit) resonance responses using single-and double-gap resonators [29,31], however, the case of asymmetric resonators is still incompletely understood; therefore, it is necessary to understand how the symmetry of the meta-atoms affects the resonance response. Here, we prepared two-gap meta-atoms, starting from a perfectly symmetrical one (d = 0) and then gradually displacing the upper gap by a distance ("d") of 5 μm, 10 μm, and 20 μm while keeping the lower gap fixed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Terahertz-Microfluidic Chip with a Few Arrays of Asymmetric Meta-Atoms for the Ultra-Trace Sensing of Solutions

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Biosensing with terahertz (THz) waves has received large amounts of attention due to its potential to detect the functional expression of biomolecules in a label-free fashion. However, many practical challenges against the diffraction limit of THz waves and the strong absorption of THz waves into polar solvents still remain in the development of compact biosensors. Here, we present a non-linear, optical, crystal-based THz-microfluidic chip with a few arrays of asymmetric meta-atoms, an elementary unit of metamaterials, for the measurement of trace amounts of solution samples. A near-field THz emission source, that is locally generated in the process of optical rectification at a fs (femtosecond) laser irradiation spot, induces a sharp Fano resonance and modifies the resonance frequency of the meta-atoms when the channel is filled with solution samples of different concentrations. Using this chip, we successfully detected minute changes in the concentration of trace amounts of mineral water and aqueous sugar solutions by monitoring the shift in the resonance frequency. A higher detectable sensitivity of 1.4 fmol of solute in a 128 pL volume of solution was achieved. This was an improvement of one order of magnitude in the sensitivity compared to our previous experiment.

show abstract

Invited Article: Terahertz microfluidic chips sensitivity-enhanced with a few arrays of meta-atoms

Cited by 64 publications

References 43 publications

Terahertz Microfluidic Metamaterial Biosensor for Sensitive Detection of Small-Volume Liquid Samples

Terahertz Microfluidic Metamaterial Biosensor for Sensitive Detection of Small-Volume Liquid Samples

Leveraging of MEMS Technologies for Optical Metamaterials Applications

A Terahertz-Microfluidic Chip with a Few Arrays of Asymmetric Meta-Atoms for the Ultra-Trace Sensing of Solutions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About