Nanoparticles doped film sensing based on terahertz metamaterials

A nanoparticles concentration sensor based on doped film and terahertz (THz) metamaterial has been proposed. By coating the nanoparticles doped polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) film on the surface of THz metamaterial, the effects of nanoparticle concentration on the metamaterial resonances are investigated through experiments and numerical simulations. Results show that resonant frequency of the metamaterial linearly decreases with the increment of doping concentration. Furthermore, numerical simulations illustrate that the redshift of resonance results from the changes of refractive index of the doped film. The concentration sensitivity of this sensor is 3.12 GHz/0.1%, and the refractive index sensitivity reaches 53.33 GHz/RIU. This work provides a non-contact, nondestructive and sensitive method for the detection of nanoparticles concentration and brings out a new application on THz film metamaterial sensing.