Functionalisation of metamaterials and their applications in novel chiral biosensing technologies

Tabouillot, Victor (2025) Functionalisation of metamaterials and their applications in novel chiral biosensing technologies. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Nanotechnologies have the potential to transform our society, offering unprecedented control over matter and enabling a multitude of applications across a wide range of scientific disciplines. Scaling materials down to the nanoscale presents a significant challenge, necessitating evermore complex manufacturing techniques. Despite extensive research on the enhanced properties of nanoscale materials, most of the real-world applications have yet to see widespread adoption. In this thesis, the extraordinary optical properties of metamaterials will be explored and applied to the development of next-generation ultrasensitive chiral sensors. Metamaterials, in this context, are engineered periodic arrays of subwavelength-scale plasmonic structures that produce optical responses unmatched with naturally occurring materials.

The chemical functionalisation of these metamaterials is a critical step in numerous applications such as sensing, photovoltaic and optical technologies. In this PhD research, a novel selective functionalisation technique has been developed, enabling control over the chemical selectivity of plasmonic nanostructures. This is possible using a thermoresponsive polymer with a functional end group that can be switched on and off using the heat directly generated by the nanostructures through thermosplasmonic effects.

The application of chiral metamaterials in chiral sensing is a focal point in this thesis, where several techniques are studied for the detection and characterisation of chiral molecules. In the first project, plasmonic circularly polarised luminescence is used to probe the near field of a chiral metamaterial and detect a monolayer of a de novo peptide, which cannot be achieved with a light scattering technique in the far field. A second study focuses on surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy applied to the discrimination of chiral helicoid nanoparticles using a chiral metamaterial. This is possible through the enantio-dependent intensity of the electromagnetic hotspots, which is “hotter” for matching combinations and “colder” for mismatching ones. The final research project in this PhD exploits chiral metamaterials in the infrared, where the vibrational modes of a single molecular layer of amino acid can be detected. Enantiomeric discrimination of multilayers of this molecule was also achieved by enhancing vibrational circular dichroism effects using the same chiral plasmonic metamaterial.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: Q Science > QD Chemistry
• Colleges/Schools: College of Science and Engineering > School of Chemistry
• Supervisor's Name: Kadodwala, Professor Malcolm
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-84951
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 05 Mar 2025 15:03
• Last Modified: 05 Mar 2025 16:38
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.84951
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/84951

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