Light-Emitting Microfibers from Lotus Root for Eco-friendly Optical Waveguides and Biosensing

TL;DR

This paper presents eco-friendly, biocompatible microfibers made from Lotus silk that can be used as flexible optical biosensors for environmental and biological monitoring, including pH and bacterial activity detection.

Contribution

Introduction of Lotus silk microfibers as novel, eco-friendly optical biosensors with waveguiding capabilities for various sensing applications.

Findings

Microfibers exhibit waveguiding of fluorescence and coupled light.

Effective in pH sensing and bacterial activity detection.

Potential for multiplexed biosensing platforms.

Abstract

Optical biosensors based on micro-/nano-fibers are highly valuable for probing and monitoring liquid environments and bioactivity. Most of current optical biosensors, however, are still based on glass, semiconductors, or metallic materials, which might be not fully suited for biologically-relevant environments. Here, we introduce biocompatible and flexible microfibers from Lotus silk as micro-environmental monitors that exhibit waveguiding of intrinsic fluorescence as well as of coupled light. These features make single-filament monitors excellent building blocks for a variety of sensing functions, including pH-probing and detection of bacterial activity. These results pave the way for the development of new and entirely eco-friendly, potentially multiplexed biosensing platforms.