Wearable plasmonic-metasurface sensor for noninvasive and universal molecular fingerprint detection on biointerfaces

Abstract

Wearable sensing technology is an essential link to future personalized medicine. However, to obtain a complete picture of human health, it is necessary but challenging to track multiple analytes inside the body simultaneously. Here, we present a wearable plasmonic-electronic sensor with “universal” molecular recognition ability. Flexible plasmonic metasurface with surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)–activity is introduced as the fundamental sensing component in a wearable sensor since we solved the technical challenge of maintaining the plasmonic activities of their brittle nanostructures under various deformations. Together with a flexible electronic sweat extraction system, our sensor can noninvasively extract and “fingerprint” analytes inside the body based on their unique SERS spectra. As a proof-of-concept example, we successfully monitored the variation of trace-amounts drugs inside the body and obtained an individual’s drug metabolic profile. Our sensor bridges the existing gap in wearable sensing technology by providing a universal, sensitive molecular tracking means to assess human health.

Human metabolite detection by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

“…Wearable devices based on SERS-active nanomaterials have also been reported, since integrating optically active plasmonic materials on flexible substrates allows the direct and sensitive recognition of metabolites [ [135] , [136] , [137] ]. SERS-active wearable devices, such as T-shirts made of flexible SERS fibers, can be designed as sensitive sweat sensors, which can monitor health by measuring sweat electrolytes.…”

Recent progress in the fabrication of flexible materials for wearable sensors

“…Wang et al loaded acetylcholine chloride molecules, which stimulate the secretion of sweat glands, on a layer of hydrogel to promote sweat secretion and collect the sweat by making use of the drug-carrying characteristics of hydrogels. 108 The working principle is shown in Fig. 8.…”

Photonic and Plasmonic Metasensors

“…[16,24,78,81,[106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115] Furthermore, metasurfaces provide a large active region, which satisfies the diagnosis and quantification of the interactions between resonating unit cells and biological entities. [80,[115][116][117][118][119] Exploiting these advantages, several ultrasensitive and precise metasensors have been designed and extended towards probing of virus carriers, such as Zika virus envelope protein, [120][121][122] SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, [123,124] HIV-1 subtypes (A, B, C, D, E, and BC), [124,125] and many other analogous biomolecules. Practically, photonic metasensors are potential and reliable alternatives to traditional sensing modalities, such as antibody-based methods (ELISA), electrochemical biosensing, POC molecular detection, and reverse transcriptase PCR.…”