Substrate-Free Terahertz Metamaterial Sensors With Customizable Configuration and High Performance

Metamaterials based on quasi-bound states in the continuum (qBICs) with manipulable resonance quality (Q) factors have provided a standout platform for cutting-edge terahertz (THz) sensing applications. However, most so far have been implemented as conventional metal patch structures with adjacent substrate layers, incurring the limitation of insufficient light-matter interaction due to substrate effects. Here, qBIC-driven metamaterials with substrate-free metallic aperture structures for tailoring light-matter interactions and exhibiting near-ideal sensing performance is introduced. Specifically, it is incorporated ultrafast femtosecond laser processing technology to fabricate H-type metallic aperture metamaterials with accessible high-contrast Q factor resonances allowed by in-plane symmetry breaking. Correspondingly, stronger light field energies are applied to the interactions due to completely eliminating the confinement of the substrate effect, enabling experimental sensitivity of up to 0.86 THz RIU-1 for the qBIC resonance, 1.9 times that of the conventional dipole resonance. Moreover, a high Q qBIC resonance achieved by optimized asymmetry parameter is exploited for detecting ultrathin layers of L-proline molecules as low as 0.87 nmol. It is envisioned that this approach will deliver insights for real-time, precise, and high-performance detection of trace biomolecules, and open new perspectives for realizing ideal performance metadevices. A BIC-driven substrate-free terahertz metamaterial sensor is developed to completely overcome the limitation of insufficient light-matter interaction due to substrate effects. The experimental results report a sensing sensitivity up to 0.86 THz RIU-1 and exploit the tunable characteristic of the qBIC resonance to customize the structural configuration for different detection scenarios. image