Liquid-Metal-Based Nanophotonic Structures for High-Performance SEIRA Sensing

Surface-enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) spectroscopy can provide label-free, nondestructive detection and identification of analytes with high sensitivity and specificity, and therefore has been widely used for various sensing applications. SEIRA sensors usually employ resonant nanophotonic structures, which can substantially enhance the electric field and hence light-matter interactions by orders of magnitude in certain nanoscale hot spots of the devices. However, as ever, smaller hot spots are employed to further enhance the field, the delivery of analytes into such hot spots becomes increasingly challenging. Here, high-performance nanophotonic SEIRA sensors based on nanopatch antennas with a liquid gallium ground plane are demonstrated, which not only lead to ultrahigh field confinement and enhancement, but also allow for convenient and efficient delivery of analytes into nanometric hot spots by employing a simple procedure suitable for point-of-care applications. The sensors exhibit superior sensitivity in the midinfrared spectral region. Around 10% molecular vibrational signals (i.e., the modulation of a sensor's reflection spectrum owing to the molecular vibrational modes of the analytes) near 2900 cm^-1  are achieved from sensing monolayer 1-octadecanethiol. This cost-effective and reliable method for realizing liquid-metal-based nanophotonic structures provides a new strategy for developing high-performance sensors and other photonics applications in the infrared region.