Terahertz (THz) sensors have attracted great attention in the biological field due to their nondestructive and contact-free biochemical samples. Recently, the concept of a quasi-bound state in the continuum (QBIC) has gained significant attention in designing biosensors with ultrahigh sensitivity. QBIC-based metasurfaces (MSs) achieve excellent performance in various applications, including sensing, optical switching, and laser, providing a reliable platform for biomaterial sensors with terahertz radiation. In this study, a structure-engineered THz MS consisting of a "double C" array has been designed, in which an asymmetry parameter α is introduced into the structure by changing the length of one subunit; the Q-factor of the QBIC device can be optimized by engineering the asymmetry parameter α. Theoretical calculation with coupling equations can well reproduce the THz transmission spectra of the designed THz QBIC MS obtained from the numerical simulation. Experimentally, we adopt an MS with α = 0.44 for testing arginine molecules. The experimental results show that different concentrations of arginine molecules lead to significant transmission changes near QBIC resonant frequencies, and the amplitude change is shown to be 16 times higher than that of the classical dipole resonance. The direct limit of detection for arginine molecules on the QBIC MS reaches 0.36 ng/mL. This work provides a new way to realize rapid, accurate, and nondestructive sensing of trace molecules and has potential application in biomaterial detection.
Keywords: metasurfaces; sensors; terahertz.