Accurate detection and early diagnosis of oral diseases such as dental caries and periodontitis, can be potentially achieved by detecting the secretion of volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs) in oral cavities. Current diagnostic approaches for VSCs can detect the existence and concentrations, yet are not capable of locating the dental lesion sites. Herein, the development of a unique approach for accurately locating dental lesion sites using a fluorescent mouthguard consisting of the zinc oxide–poly(dimethylsiloxane) (ZnO‐PDMS) nanocomposite to detect the local release of VSCs is reported. The ZnO‐PDMS mouthguard displays a highly sensitive and selective response to VSCs, and exhibits high fluorescent stability, good biocompatibility, and low biological toxicity in normal physiological environments. Then, the wearable ZnO‐PDMS mouthguard is demonstrated to be able to identify the precise locations of lesion sites in human subjects. Combined with image analysis, the mouthguards successfully uncover the precise locations of dental caries, allowing convenient screening of hidden dental lesion sites that are oftentimes omitted by dentists. Due to low cost, long‐term stability, and good patient compliance, the proposed wearable mouthguard is suitable for large‐scale production and enables widely applicable, preliminary yet accurate screening of dental lesions prior to dental clinics and routine physical examinations.

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Recently, biosensing based on weak coupling in plasmon-emitter hybrid nanostructures exhibits the merits of simplicity and high sensitivity, and attracts increasing attention as an emerging nano-sensor. In this study, we propose an innovative plasmon-regulated fluorescence resonance energy transfer (plasmon-regulated FRET) sensing strategy based on a plasmon-emitter hybrid nanostructure of gold nanorod-quantum dots (Au NR-QDs) by partially modifying QDs onto the surfaces of Au NRs. The Au NR-QDs showed good sensitivity and reversibility against refractive index change. We successfully employed the Au NR-QDs to fabricate nano-sensors for detecting a cancer biomarker of alpha fetoprotein with a limit of detection of 0.30 ng/mL, which displays that the sensitivity of the Au NR-QDs nano-sensor was effectively improved compared with the Au NRs based plasmonic sensing. Additionally, to demonstrate the universality of the plasmon-regulated FRET sensing strategy, another plasmon-emitter hybrid nano-sensor of Au nano-prism-quantum dots (Au NP-QDs) were constructed and applied for detecting a myocardial infarction biomarker of cardiac troponin I. It was first reported that the change of absorption spectra of plasmonic structure in a plasmon-emitter hybrid nanostructure was employed for analytes detection. The plasmon-regulated FRET sensing strategy described herein has potential utility to develop general sensing platforms for chemical and biological analysis.

Biointerface sensors have brought about remarkable advances in modern biomedicine. To accurately monitor bioentity’s behaviors, biointerface sensors need to capture three main types of information, which are the electric, spectroscopic, and morphologic signals. Simultaneously obtaining these three types of information is of critical importance in the development of future biosensor, which is still not possible in the existing biosensors. Herein, by synergizing metamaterials, optical, and electronic sensing designs, we proposed the metaoptronic multiplexed interface (MMI) and built a MMI biosensor which can collectively record electric, spectroscopic, and morphologic information on bioentities. The MMI biosensor enables the real-time triple-monitoring of cellular dynamics and opens up the possibility for powerlessly monitoring ocular dryness. Our findings not only demonstrate an advanced multiplexed biointerface sensor with integrated capacities but also help to identify a uniquely significant arena for the nanomaterials, meta-optics, and nanotechnologies to play their roles in a complementary manner.