Research Progress on Nano Photonics Technology-based SARS-CoV-2 Detection

ABSTRACT

The worldwide outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has resulted in the infection even death of people all over the world, which has gravely affected our daily life. Globalization of trade and convenient transportation immensely accelerate the propagation of the epidemic, which brings severe difficulties to prevent the epidemic. Therefore, rapid and accurate diagnosis of infected persons and screening of asymptomatic persons play an important role. At present, the most widely used method for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 is reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), which still has some problems including complicated sample storage and transportation, complex operations and so on. These shortcomings cause the hindrances to achieve fast, simple, efficient diagnostic testing under the normalization of the epidemic. In the past few years, with the development of nanotechnology, bio-sensing methods based on nano photonics have become a research hotspot. Label-free optical methods have been widely explored for bio-sensing including virus detection, such as surface plasmon resonance (SPR), surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), whispering gallery mode (WGM) and colorimetry. These approaches offer available alternatives to improve the speed, sensitivity, and accuracy of optical bio-sensing, owing to the enhanced interaction between the nanostructure and the biomarkers. This review summarizes these nano photonics-based bio-sensing technologies for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, the detection mechanism of biomarkers by nano photonics is explained, and the further development trends are discussed. In view of the difficulties in manufacturing nano photonics structures, a new strategy of large-area preparation of nano photonics structures using nano green printing technology is proposed, which provides theoretical and technical support for accurate and effective prevention and control of the epidemic diseases. © 2022 Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences.