A novel approach to enhance terahertz metamaterial's sensor sensitivity for low-dose Aβ₄₂ protein detection:...

Combining the non-labeling and non-destructive characteristics of terahertz (THz) waves, THz metamaterials are widely applied for biomedical and medical detection. However, the sensitivity of conventional sensors diminishes gradually with the decrease of analyte's thickness, meaning that detection capability is limited for ultrathin or extremely low-dose analytes. Here, we have proposed a novel approach to overcome this limitation by implementing a systematic dual-layer superposition based on Taichi-like toroidal dipole metamaterials. The sensitivity of bilayer structure is maximized due to coupling enhancement of the electromagnetic field when top and bottom layers present a 90° rotational symmetry arrangement. Difference to traditional single-layer metamaterials, the sensitivity of the bilayer structure increases with the decrease of analyte's thickness. The sensitivity of the dual-layer sensor is up to 460 GHz/RIU when the analyte thickness is 1 μm, which is 3.15 times that of the initial single-layer sensor and surpasses the sensitivity of other reported metamaterial structures. The sensitivity further increases as the number of layers increases. It's pretty interesting that the multiple superposition also increases the sensitivity of other metasurfaces. As a sensor, the double-layer structure can achieve the detection of Aβ₄₂ protein associated with Alzheimer's disease at a concentration as low as 10 ng/ml, which represents a tenfold improvement over the original single-layer structure. These results provide an effective method to improve the detection capability of THz metamaterials.