High performance THz metasurface sensor based on modified-SWCNTs film for femtomolar protein detection

Abstract

Terahertz (THz) metasurface sensor plays an important role in environmental monitoring, biomedical diagnostics, and materials science. However, most traditional THz metasurfaces for trace biological substance detection either suffer from high ohmic loss, or cannot achieve ultra-low concentration detection at the femtomolar level, which limits the application range of THz metasurfaces. Here, we propose a novel metasurface based on modified single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) film for specific detection of SAA protein in femtomolar concentration. By modifying the SWCNTs film with concentrated sulfuric acid and introducing functionalized gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs), not only the non-resonant loss of the SWCNTs film was greatly reduced, but also the specific selection of trace SAA proteins was achieved. We experimentally demonstrated that the sensitivity of this THz metasurface sensor for SAA protein detection is 37.5 GHz/fM. In contrast to conventional metal or dielectric metasurfaces, because the unique mesh-like structure of the SWCNTs film can greatly increase the interaction between trace substances and the sensor, this new modifiable metasurface can achieve the lowest detection limit of 0.1 fM, which has increased by an order of magnitude. Our results provide a new and promising method for THz metasurfaces to realize high-performance biosensors.