Human cell sensing based on symmetric terahertz metamaterials

摘要

The terahertz metamaterial with metallic symmetric square slit ring array is proposed to sensing human cells. The sensitivity of the structure is discussed with the finite element method simulations and the optimized structure parameters are obtained. The cell location analysis is carried out and the calculated result shows that the gaps are the most sensitive places in the structure. With the lithography of hard wafer support, the metamaterial terahertz sensor is fabricated on the thin and flexible polyethylene glycol terephthalate (PET) substrate which is low loss in terahertz waveband. In the sensing experiment, the human renal epithelial cell transfected with adenovirus EIA gene-293t cells are in situ grown on the surface of the fabricated terahertz metamaterial sensor. With the terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), the resonant frequency of the metamaterial shift 18GHz after the 293t cells are grown onto it.