To investigate dependence of the sensitivity of THz metamaterials on the position of target dielectric materials, we functionalized the metamaterial gap with an adhesive polymer. A shift in resonance frequency occurs when polystyrene microbeads are deposited in the gap of the metamaterial’s metal resonator pattern, while little change is observed when they are deposited on other areas of the metasurface. A two-dimensional mapping of the sensitivity, with a grid size of 1 µm, is obtained from a finite-difference time-domain simulation: The frequency shift is displayed as a function of the position of a target dielectric cube. The resulting sensitivity distribution clearly reveals the crucial role of the gap in sensing with metamaterials, which is consistent with the electric field distribution near the gap.
The authors acknowledge support from the Midcareer National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) (2017R1A2 B4009177) and the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) (20184030202220).
