Chiral identification of lactic acid enantiomers by an achiral terahertz metasurface sensor

•A terahertz EIT metamaterial sensor is designed to distinguish chiral lactic acids.•The qualitative and quantitative identification of the chiral lactic acids is fixed by the frequency offset.•The chiral parameters of chiral lactic acids are extracted by theory analysis and used to analyze the coupling between lactic acids and the sensor.•The principle of the recognition of chiral lactic acids by metamaterial sensor is proved both in simulation and measurement.