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Advances and applications of nanophotonic biosensors

Nature Nanotechnology volume 17, pages 5–16 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Nanophotonic devices, which control light in subwavelength volumes and enhance light–matter interactions, have opened up exciting prospects for biosensing. Numerous nanophotonic biosensors have emerged to address the limitations of the current bioanalytical methods in terms of sensitivity, throughput, ease-of-use and miniaturization. In this Review, we provide an overview of the recent developments of label-free nanophotonic biosensors using evanescent-field-based sensing with plasmon resonances in metals and Mie resonances in dielectrics. We highlight the prospects of achieving an improved sensor performance and added functionalities by leveraging nanostructures and on-chip and optoelectronic integration, as well as microfluidics, biochemistry and data science toolkits. We also discuss open challenges in nanophotonic biosensing, such as reducing the overall cost and handling of complex biological samples, and provide an outlook for future opportunities to improve these technologies and thereby increase their impact in terms of improving health and safety.

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Fig. 1: Future of biosensors.
Fig. 2: Localization of electromagnetic field in nanophotonic structures.
Fig. 3: Examples of nanophotonic biosensors based on refractometric label-free affinity and SEIRA.
Fig. 4: Integration schemes for the implementation of nanophotonic biosensors.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge funding from the European Research Council under contract no. 682167 and no. 875672, and the European Union Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation under contract no. FETOPEN-737071 and no. 777714 (H.A.), Samsung Global Research Outreach program, the Sanford P. Bordeau Chair in Electrical Engineering, and the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (S.-H.O.), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and the Lee-Lucas Chair in Physics (S.A.M.) and the Czech Science Foundation under contract no. 20-23787X (J.H.). We also acknowledge A. John-Herpin, A. Belushkin and C. T. Ertsgaard for their help with the figure preparation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Bionanophotonic Systems, Institute of Bioengineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Hatice Altug

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Sang-Hyun Oh

  3. Chair in Hybrid Nanosystems, Nanoinstitut Munich, Faculty of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Stefan A. Maier

  4. Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Stefan A. Maier

  5. Institute of Photonics and Electronics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

    Jiří Homola

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  1. Hatice Altug
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Correspondence to Hatice Altug, Sang-Hyun Oh, Stefan A. Maier or Jiří Homola.

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Altug, H., Oh, SH., Maier, S.A. et al. Advances and applications of nanophotonic biosensors. Nat. Nanotechnol. 17, 5–16 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-021-01045-5

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