Research group of Profs. Atsushi Ishikawa and Kenji Tsuruta at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, in collaboration with the RIKEN in Japan, has developed a new artificial optical material, so-called asymmetric metamaterial, and demonstrated the ultra-high sensitive IR detection of a few thousand (~ zepto-molar level) organic molecules chemisorbed on the metamaterial surface.

The detail can be found (in Japanese) at : http://www.okayama-u.ac.jp/tp/release/release_id473.html