Nanophotonic Biosensors: Fundamentals and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Futuristic health-care systems are envisaged to be more efficient (both in costs and processes), faster and patient-friendly. There are, however, considerable challenges to be faced before this becomes a reality. In particular, bringing diagnostic methods from hospitals and centralized laboratories to high-throughput, handheld biosensor devices is a key factor in this transformation. These portable biosensors, commonly known as point-of-care devices, will allow the remote monitoring and control of diseases (improving doctor–patient communication). Furthermore, they will contribute to overcoming the challenges associated with rural, remote and underserved communities, where there is a demand for low-cost devices that do not require refrigeration or specialized laboratory infrastructure.

Although there are several different approaches to the design and development of portable biosensing devices, the exploitation of light–matter interactions in nanophotonic structures has opened unique and exciting prospects for the next generation of PoC devices. For example, the use of localized, strongly enhanced optical fields in sub-wavelength plasmonic nanostructures allows the detection of analytes at ultra-low concentrations. Moreover, the use of magneto-optical (MO) effects in plasmonic and all-dielectric nanostructures has yielded immensely improved sensing resolution. Additionally, the use of optical forces in nanophotonic tweezers is increasingly calling attention to the large-scale parallel trapping and dynamic sensing of biological analytes without the need of molecular binding tethers or labeling. In addition, optical forces provide a mechanism for the non-invasive separation and sorting of biological nanoparticles in microfluidic devices—for example, in the enantio classification and enantioseparation of chiral samples, which are of prime interest for the pharmaceutical industry.

This new Special Issue of Applied Sciences considers how the optical properties of all-dielectric and plasmonic nanostructures contribute new knowledge and potential solutions for future PoC devices. Original research contributions with new experimental results and/or computationally derived insights and review papers providing readers with new perspectives and/or challenges for future developments are encouraged.

Prof. Dr. Jorge Ricardo Mejía-Salazar
Guest Editor

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• nanophotonics
• biosensing
• all-dielectric nanostructures
• plasmonic biosensing
• magnetophotonics
• magnetoplasmonics
• optical tweezers
• microfluidics