Acta Photonica Sinica, Volume. 52, Issue 10, 1052401(2023)

Progress in Highly Sensitive Sensing Based on Spoof Localized Surface Plasmons(Invited)

Tianshuo BAI1,2,3, Wanzhu WANG1,2,3, Longfei ZHANG1,2,4, Xuanru ZHANG1,2,3,4、*, and Tiejun CUI1,2,3,4、*
Author Affiliations
  • 1State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves,Southeast University,Nanjing 210096,China
  • 2Institute of Electromagnetic Space,Southeast University,Nanjing 210096,China
  • 3School of Information Science and Engineering,Southeast University,Nanjing 210096,China
  • 4School of Microelectronics,Southeast University,Nanjing 210096,China
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    Spoof Localized Surface Plasmons (SLSPs) are electromagnetic resonance modes in the microwave, millimeter-wave, and terahertz frequency bands, which can mimic the modal profiles and physical properties of optical localized surface plasmons based on plasmonic metamaterials. Due to the lower metal loss in these frequencies and the flexibilities in metamaterial designs, SLSPs can achieve excellent sensing characteristics such as deep-subwavelength field confinements, high quality factors, and high dielectric sensitivity. The SLSP concept was theoretically proposed by Pendry and Garcia-Vidal et al in 2012. In 2014, Cui et al proved that SLSPs can be sustained by ultrathin metal patterns on printed circuit boards, and envisioned SLSPs' applications in both the printed circuits and the integrated circuits. Meanwhile, the SLSPs can be integrated with passive and active lumped devices, and exhibit high flexibilities in integration with the signal detection circuits and the wireless communication circuits. Therefore, SLSPs present promising application potentials in compact and portable sensing systems for the internet of things.This paper reviews the representative progress in recent years in the SLSP sensing area. In the first section, some novel resonance modes and resonance structures are introduced, with discussions on their promotions in the sensing indices. Hot topics such as plasmonic skyrmions, exceptional points, quasi-bound states in the continuum, and vortex mode are discussed here. Those novel SLSP electromagnetic modes provide new ideas for sensing. The spiral phase wavefronts of vortex waves can provide rich information and result in a high ability to detect multiple physical quantities. Novel resonance structures including fan-shaped ones, the three-dimensional ones based on origami metamaterials are introduced too, which provide new ideas and methods for SLSP sensor design. The resonance characteristics of SLSP in the terahertz band and its applications are also overviewed. Besides the widely studied array structures under space-wave excitation, it is an irresistible trend to develop terahertz sensing in semiconductor integrated circuits. SLSP sensors pioneers the way for the development of on-chip terahertz biosensing systems. In the second section, the sensing enhancement techniques based on mode coupling and active amplifiers are discussed. Hot spot structures where electromagnetic energy converges can be constructed based on mode coupling inside SLSPs, and can result in highly sensitive hybridization modes. Loading active amplifiers can effectively compensate for the losses in the sensing structure and can improve the quality factor and the excitation efficiency. These techniques supply reliable solutions for the improvements of SLSP sensing indices. Then, typical application scenarios of SLSP sensing are introduced, ranging from solution concentration sensing, bacteria and cancer cell sensing, and mechanical sensing based on flexible SLSP circuits. SLSP can compress the microwave electromagnetic resonances into a deep sub-wavelength scale, greatly enhance the sensing sensitivity to tiny biomedical targets, and break the bottleneck of microwave resonance sensing limited by long wavelengths. Finally, we introduce a recently reported SLSP sensing system, which integrates the SLSP sensor with its signal detection circuits and the Bluetooth module into an ultra-compact size of 1.8 cm×1.2 cm. The signal-noise ratio of this ultracompact sensing system can reach a high value of 69 dB and the system is validated by explosive acetone vapor sensing.The review paper ends with prospective discussions of the SLSP sensing development. Novel principles and phenomena still emerge continuously in the SLSP area, while ultra-compact sensing systems have been constructed yet. We believe that it is good timing now to land the SLSP concept on practical applications. In the following research, there is still a large space for both scientific research and application explorations of SLSP sensing. The mutual promotion of scientific and engineering investigations will surely stimulate the continuous development of SLSP sensing.

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    Tianshuo BAI, Wanzhu WANG, Longfei ZHANG, Xuanru ZHANG, Tiejun CUI. Progress in Highly Sensitive Sensing Based on Spoof Localized Surface Plasmons(Invited)[J]. Acta Photonica Sinica, 2023, 52(10): 1052401

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    Paper Information

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    Received: Jun. 30, 2023

    Accepted: Aug. 22, 2023

    Published Online: Dec. 5, 2023

    The Author Email: ZHANG Xuanru (zhangxru@seu.edu.cn), CUI Tiejun (tjcui@seu.edu.cn)

    DOI:10.3788/gzxb20235210.1052401

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