Monolayer graphene sensing enabled by the strong Fano-resonant metasurface

Recent advances in graphene photonics reveal promising applications in the technologically important terahertz spectrum, where graphene-based active terahertz metamaterial modulators have been experimentally demonstrated. However, the sensitivity of the atomically thin graphene monolayer towards sharp Fano resonant terahertz metasurfaces remains unexplored. Here, we demonstrate thin-film sensing of the graphene monolayer with a high quality factor terahertz Fano resonance in metasurfaces consisting of a two-dimensional array of asymmetric resonators. A drastic change in the transmission amplitude of the Fano resonance was observed due to strong interactions between the monolayer graphene and the tightly confined electric fields in the capacitive gaps of the Fano resonator. The deep-subwavelength sensing of the atomically thin monolayer graphene further highlights the extreme sensitivity of the resonant electric field excited at the dark Fano resonance, allowing the detection of an analyte that is lambda/1 000 000 thinner than the free space wavelength.