A review of nanophotonic structures in optofluidic biosensors for food safety and analysis

Background: The crucial requirement of pragmatic food safety methods remains paramount for both consumer health and food industry. The fusion of microfluidics with optics, known as optofluidics has been the leading focus of current scientific research owing to their exceptional properties. The integration of nanophotonic structures in optofluidics has unveiled promising opportunities in real-time sensing of food contaminants, pathogens and assessment of nutritional value of food and food products. Scope and approach: The review has outlined the potential of various nanophotonic structures with particular focus on plasmonic nanomaterials and dielectric metasurfaces. We highlight the prospects of engineering sensitive and specific compact devices by leveraging the structural and optical dynamics of nanophotonic structures, and incorporating optoelectronics, microfluidics and data analysis tools on ultracompact chips. Moreover, the working principles of nanophotonic integrated optofluidics systems for food safety and quality monitoring, along with important advances have been discussed. We also discuss challenges in development of on -chip biosensors and provide an outlook for future possibilities of applying these biosensors to ensure food safety and integrity of our food supply chain by bringing sensitive, real-time analysis that assists in early detection and prevention of potential hazards, leading to improved public health and economic growth. Key findings and conclusion: This technology holds great promise to produce portable, high throughput devices. With novel architectures and intelligent algorithms, these flexible biosensors would enable multiplexing and accurate detection of small molecules with complex food matrices, significantly enhancing the feasibility to bring this technology to actual practice.