Optically resonant metasurfaces for biosensing and spectrochemical imaging

Mid-infrared (MIR) vibrational spectroscopy is a non-invasive and label-free analytical method; thus, it has become an essential technique for examining biological samples and tissues. Research has shown that this method, MIR spectral imaging (MIRSI), can identify various diseases with implications for enhanced biomedical tissue diagnostics. Nonetheless, the diverse chemical makeup of tissues and their spatial heterogeneity, combined with the innately weak interaction between infrared light and biological molecules, limit the efficacy of conventional MIRSI. We introduce a new chemical tissue analysis method that uses plasmonic metasurfaces enabling the detailed molecular mapping of tissue sections. The proposed surface-enhanced chemical imaging method using plasmonic metasurfaces has excellent potential for translational biomedical research and clinical histopathology.