Highly sensitive terahertz polarization biosensor utilizing chiral metasurface

Abstract In order to achieve a highly sensitive biosensor with a simple structure, we propose a chiral metasurface polarization sensor. Using immunological surface plasmon resonance (SPR) detection, the antigen or antibody is fixed as a probe on the SPR metasurface to detect the corresponding antibody or antigen. Through the change of the refractive index of the analyte on the surface facial mask, the terahertz signal changes, and finally the sensing detection of avian influenza virus can be achieved. The designed metasurface adopts a hollow split sector chiral structure to generate chiral surface current, which can convert linearly polarized incident waves as elliptical polarized waves. The structure achieves the high sensitivity of 401 deg/RIU at frequency of 0.8 THz, and the avian influenza virus (H1N1, H5N2 and H9N2) with the same real part of the refractive index can also be distinguished. Influenza viruses belong to the family Orthomyxoviridae of RNA viruses, divided into three types: A, B, and C. In this article, avian influenza viruses belong to type A influenza viruses. It can clearly identify different Avian Influenza Viruses by the two polarization characteristic parameters of the reflection spectrum PEA (Polarization Ellipse Angle) and PRA (Polarization Rotation Angle). This method has a significant application prospect in the fields of biomedicine and food industries.