Metamaterial application in sensing for living cells

We demonstrated reflection spectroscopy of human cancer cell, DLD-1, cultured in the liquid medium on the metamaterial. Based on the complex dielectric constant of distilled water and DLD-1 monolayer determined by terahertz time-domain attenuated total reflection spectroscopy, we found weakened resonance inherent in the metamaterial in the terahertz frequencies reflects dielectric properties within the field of depth “sampled” (several micrometers from the metamaterial surface in the above case), which is defined by the architecture of the metamaterial. This finding suggests that optimization of a frequency-tunable metamaterial can be used to develop a novel, sensitive, cellular sensor that measures whole cell changes; a result that cannot be realized by conventional approaches.