超材料赋能先进太赫兹生物化学传感检测技术的研究进展

Research progress of metamaterials powered advanced terahertz biochemical sensing detection techniques

处于太赫兹频段的电磁波表现出许多极具发展前景的特点,如非电离、“指纹”谱、对弱共振敏感、对非极性物质穿透性强等特性,并逐步发展成物理、信息、材料、生物、化学等学科基础与应用研究关注的热点.然而,在生物、化学物质的传感检测应用中,当待测物尺度小于入射太赫兹波长时,微小扰动和细微特征难以被太赫兹波检测到,并且无法与太赫兹波之间产生充分的相互作用,这无疑阻碍了太赫兹生物化学传感检测技术的进一步发展.而太赫兹超材料的迅速发展提供了解决这一问题的全新思路.近年来,一系列基于太赫兹超材料的研究工作与新材料、新结构、新机制结合,为实现高灵敏太赫兹生物化学传感检测带来了新的机遇.本文主要综述了最近太赫兹超材料应用于生物化学传感检测技术的研究进展,并简述了评价器件性能的关键参数.根据材料特性、设计策略的不同,对基于金属-介质、碳基纳米材料、全硅等太赫兹超材料生物化学传感检测相关工作做了总结,并在文末对太赫兹超材料传感检测技术的未来发展方向做出了展望.

The electromagnetic wave in the terahertz region shows many promising properties, such as non-ionizing,sensitivity to weak resonance, and gradually becomes a basic and applied research hotspot of physics,information, materials, biology, chemistry and other disciplines. However, the analyte molecules tend to be of subwavelength size, and cannot have sufficient interaction with the incident terahertz wave. Small disturbances and subtle features are difficult to detect, which undoubtedly hinders the further development of the terahertz biochemical sensing and detection. The rapid development of terahertz metamaterials provides an alternative method to overcome this obstacle. The intense electromagnetic field enhancement induced by metamaterials allows the sensing and detection application to surpass the limitation of classical terahertz spectroscopy, which is due to the enhancement of the interaction between the analyte and terahertz. In recent years, a series of researches based on terahertz metamaterials combined with new materials, new structures and new mechanisms has offered new opportunities for the application of highly sensitive terahertz biochemical sensing and detection.In this paper, the recent advances in the application of terahertz metamaterials biochemical sensing are reviewed. The related concepts are briefly introduced and the influences of different factors on the sensing performance of metamaterial sensor are analyzed. According to the material selection and design strategies, the related researches of terahertz metamaterial biochemical sensing and detection are summarized. Furthermore,the novel strategy of terahertz metamaterial sensing and detection application based on multidisciplinary are presented, and the future development directions are also discussed, which will greatly conduce to expanding the practicality of terahertz sensing and detection.