Asymmetric tetramer metasurface sensor governed by quasi-bound states in the continuum

Asymmetric metasurfaces supporting quasi-bound states in the continuum (BICs) with high Q-factors and strong light–matter interaction properties are attractive platforms for label-free biosensing applications. Recently, various meta-atom geometries have been exploited to support sharp high-Q quasi-BIC resonance. However, which meta-atom design may be a better practical choice remains unclear. Here, we compared several established meta-atom designs to address this issue by conducting an extensive theoretical discussion on sensing capability and fabrication difficulty. We theoretically revealed that the tetramer meta-atom geometry produces a higher surface sensitivity and exhibits a larger size-to-wavelength ratio than other meta-atom schemes. Furthermore, we found that metasurfaces with a higher depth considerably enhance surface sensitivity. The performance of two asymmetric tetramer metasurfaces (ATMs) with different heights was demonstrated experimentally. Both shallow and thick ATM structures exhibit sharp high Q-factor resonances with polarization-insensitive features. Notably, the surface sensitivity is 1.62 times for thick ATM compared to that for shallow ones. The combination of properties opens new opportunities for developing biosensing or chemical-sensing applications with high performance.