Photonic Barcodes Research Articles

Hydrogel Encapsulated Core–Shell Photonic Barcodes for Multiplex Biomarker Quantification

Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is one of the most fatal diseases in the world in recent decades. Because rapid and accurate determination of AMI has the potential to save millions of lives globally, the development of new diagnostic method is of great significance. Here, we designed a magnetic responsive structural color core-shell hydrogel microcarrier as a novel platform for a high-throughput detection of a variety of cardiovascular biomarkers. The composite hydrogel shell was formed from methacrylated gelatin, acrylic acid, and poly(ethylene glycol diacrylate), and the core silica photonic crystals acted as a detector. Fe3O4 nanoparticles were infused into the void of the core-shell structure to impart magnetic response properties to the encoded carrier. The findings indicated that our method possessed high sensitivity and reliable specificity in the high-throughput detection of AMI-related biomarkers Myo, cTnI, and BNP. In addition, the developed method not only showed good specificity and high sensitivity in clinical samples but also was comparable to the clinical gold standard method. Therefore, the magnetic response structural color core-shell hydrogel carriers were regarded as a potential approach to detect some AMI disease-related biomarkers.

Dual-stimuli responsive photonic barcodes based on perovskite quantum dots encapsulated in whispering-gallery-mode microspheres

Micro/nanoscale photonic barcodes hold great potential for broad applications in items tracking, multiplexed bioassays and anti-counterfeiting. The ever-increasing demand in advanced anti-counterfeiting applications calls for micro/nanoscale barcodes with accurate recognition, large encoding capacity and high security level. Here, we proposed a strategy to construct the dual-stimuli responsive photonic barcodes based on the perovskite quantum dots (PQDs) doped polymer whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microcavities via swelling-deswelling method. Benefiting from the well-defined spherical microcavities, the photoluminescence (PL) spectra of as-prepared composites exhibit a series of sharp peaks characteristics resulting from the effective WGM modulation, which constitutes the fingerprint of a specific resonator and thus allows a definition of photonic barcodes. On this basis, we achieved responsive photonic barcodes based on the volatile polar-solvent-controlled luminescence in the microspheres benefitting from the space-confined microcavities and the ionic feature of the PQDs. Moreover, the light-controlled photonic barcodes have further been acquired through reversibly regulating the inactivation and activation of the energy transfer (ET) process between the PQDs and photochromic dyes. The well-established protocols of PQDs@WGM enable the development of distinct responsive barcodes with multi-responsive features, which will pave an avenue to new types of flexible WGM-based components for optical data recording and security labels.

Thermal Gradient Induced Transparency and Absorption in a Microcavity (Laser Photonics Rev. 17(2)/2023)

Optical Microcavities In article number 2200644, Lei Shi and colleagues propose and demonstrate thermal gradient induced transparency (TGIT) and absorption (TGIA) effects in a single functionalized microcavity. This novel platform can be used as a probe to realize a direct temperature readout from the transmission spectrum via multiple TGIT/TGIA-based photonic barcodes with a high detection resolution of 9 × 10−4 °C.

Tunable NIR Lasing in MOF for Multi‐Level Complex Photonic Barcodes

AbstractDeveloping functional photonic tags is of great importance to meet the globally increasing demand for information security and anti‐counterfeiting. However, it still suffers from the restricted encoding capacity, low complexity, and unsatisfactory confidentiality. Herein, a strategy is demonstrated to construct multi‐level complex photonic barcodes in near‐infrared (NIR) region based on a composition‐graded metal‐organic framework (MOF) heterostructure with the hierarchical encapsulation of different dye molecules. Such MOF microstructure exhibits switchable dual‐wavelength NIR lasing by adjusting the excited position, polarization direction, and pump energy. Thus, through converting the laser spectra with dynamic and regular changes to solid bars, the multi‐block photonic barcodes with three‐level encoding system are constructed, dramatically increasing the complexity and capacity. It makes the MOF‐based heterostructure with switchable lasing properties become a hard‐to‐counterfeit potential material for advanced anticounterfeiting of high‐level security.

Photo-controllable heterostructured crystals of metal-organic frameworks via reversible photocycloaddition.

Metal-organic framework (MOF)-based heterostructures are attractive because they can provide versatile platforms for various applications but are limited by complex liquid epitaxial growth methods. Here, we employ photolithography to fabricate and control MOF-based heterostructured crystals via [4 + 4] photocycloaddition. A layered dysprosium-dianthracene framework, [Dy(NO3)3(depma2)1.5]·(depma2)0.5 (2) [depma2 = pre-photodimerized 9-diethylphosphonomethylanthracene (depma)] underwent a single-crystal-to-single-crystal transition at 140 °C to form [Dy(NO3)3(depma)(depma2)]·(depma2)0.5 (3). The dissociated anthracene moieties are face-to-face π-π interacted allowing a reversible photocycloaddition between 2 and 3. This structural transformation causes a luminescence switch between blue and yellow-green and thus can be used to fabricate erasable 2 + 3 heterostructured crystals for rewritable photonic barcodes. The internal strain at the heterostructure interface leads to photobending and straightening of the crystal, a photomechanical response that is fast, reversible and durable, even operating at 140 °C, making it promising for photoactuation. This work may inspire the development of intelligent MOF-based heterostructures for photonic applications.

Thermal Gradient Induced Transparency and Absorption in a Microcavity

AbstractGeneration of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and absorption (EIA) effects in optical cavity systems paves a way for many applications ranging from fundamental physics to various photonic applications, such as analogous quantum interference effects, slow light, and light storage. Here, thermal gradient induced transparency (TGIT) and absorption (TGIA) effects in a single microcavity are proposed and demonstrated. The effects originate from the unique temperature gradient in the axial direction of the functionalized microbottle cavity, which leads to different resonance evolutions for whispering gallery modes with different axial orders. Furthermore, this platform is leveraged as a probe to realize a direct temperature readout from the transmission spectrum via multiple TGIT (TGIA is also applicable)‐based photonic barcodes with a high detection resolution of 9 × 10−4 °C. This platform offers a novel, highly efficient, and simple scheme to realize dynamic mode coupling for various applications, such as light storage and temperature detection.

Photonic Barcodes Based on a SNAP Microcavity for Displacement Sensing

Barcodes, as a representation of data describing information of the object, have been demonstrated to have a great value for tracking and identifying large amounts of information in our daily lives. Here, we demonstrate a surface nanoscale axial photonics (SNAP) microcavity multimode displacement sensing technology based on photonic barcodes. Based on the characteristic parameters of each order axial mode in the resonance spectrum of SNAP microcavity, the resonance spectrum is converted into a barcode. The correlation coefficient between the barcode to be detected and the standard barcode is calculated by using the method of cross-correlation function to achieve rapid and accurate identification of microcavity displacement. Simulations demonstrate the feasibility of displacement sensing based on photonic barcodes. When the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the noise-containing spectrum is 10 dB, the identification error of the displacement is ± <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.2 ~\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> using the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) hard threshold denoising method. This work not only can directly read the displacement from the spectrum, but also has a strong resistance to environmental interference, which lays the foundation for the development of a high-precision, large-range micro-displacement sensor.

Photonic Barcodes Combining Branched Hybridization Chain Reaction for Multiplex Quantification of Bladder Cancer MicroRNAs

AbstractBladder cancer is the most common malignant tumor of the urinary system with substantial therapy cost and mortality. Recently, quantification and multiplex detection of circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) from human serum has opened a new avenue for efficient diagnosis of bladder cancer. Herein, a novel multiplex platform is designed toward bladder cancer‐related miRNAs detection by integrating photonic crystal (PhC) barcodes with the branched hybridization chain reaction (B‐HCR). PhC barcodes possess constant characteristic reflection peaks originating from the highly ordered microstructure and thus exhibit vivid structural colors as the encoding elements. B‐HCR is an isothermal enzyme‐free amplification strategy on the basis of hybridization chain reaction (HCR), which presents a higher amplification efficiency. By integrating the vivid structural colors of PhC barcodes with the isothermal amplification of B‐HCR, this platform shows an acceptable accuracy, reproducibility, and high sensitivity for multiplex detection of low‐abundance miRNAs. Moreover, the results are consistent with conventional qRT‐PCR in the serum specimens. Therefore, this platform may provide a new approach for the clinical diagnosis of bladder cancer.

Organic Branched Heterostructures with Optical Interconnects for Photonic Barcodes

AbstractOptical interconnects exhibit superior potential in the precise regulation of photon transmission for organic photonic circuits. However, the rational design of well‐defined organic heterostructures toward active optoelectronics remains challenging. Herein, we designed organic branched heterostructures (OBHs) with accurate spatial organization for optical interconnection. Notably, the precise regulation of OBHs has been controllably achieved including the trunk morphologies and the branched microwire number. Significantly, these as‐prepared OBHs inherently exhibit the multichannel coupling outputs and the excitation position‐dependent waveguide characteristics, leading to various outcoupling signals with tunable intensity and emission colors. The optical interconnects are realized due to the occurrence of exciton conversion and photon propagation between branch and trunk at the heterojunction, benefiting the application possibilities of two‐dimensional (2D) optical barcodes.

Organic Branched Heterostructures with Optical Interconnects for Photonic Barcodes.

Optical interconnects exhibit superior potential in the precise regulation of photon transmission for organic photonic circuits. However, the rational design of well-defined organic heterostructures toward active optoelectronics remains challenging. Herein, we designed organic branched heterostructures (OBHs) with accurate spatial organization for optical interconnection. Notably, the precise regulation of OBHs has been controllably achieved including the trunk morphologies and the branched microwire number. Significantly, these as-prepared OBHs inherently exhibit the multichannel coupling outputs and the excitation position-dependent waveguide characteristics, leading to various outcoupling signals with tunable intensity and emission colors. The optical interconnects are realized due to the occurrence of exciton conversion and photon propagation between branch and trunk at the heterojunction, benefiting the application possibilities of two-dimensional (2D) optical barcodes.

Pollen-Inspired Photonic Barcodes with Prickly Surface for Multiplex Exosome Capturing and Screening.

Exosomes, which play an important role in intercellular communication, are closely related to the pathogenesis of disease. However, their effective capture and multiplex screening are still challenging. Here, inspired by the unique structure of pollens, we present novel photonic crystal (PhC) barcodes with prickly surface by hydrothermal synthesis for multiplex exosome capturing and screening. These pollen-inspired PhC barcodes are imparted with extremely high specific surface area and excellent prickly surface nanostructures, which can improve the capture rate and detection sensitivity of exosomes. As the internal periodic structures are kept during the hydrothermal synthesis process, the pollen-inspired PhC barcodes exhibit obvious and stable structural colors for identification, which enables multiplex detection of exosomes. Thus, the pollen-inspired PhC barcodes can not only effectively capture and enrich cancer-related exosomes but also support multiplex screening of exosomes with high sensitivity. These features make the prickly PhC barcodes ideal for the analysis of exosomes in medical diagnosis.

Polarized Emission of Lanthanide Metal–Organic Framework (Ln‐MOF) Crystals for High‐Capacity Photonic Barcodes

AbstractPhotonic barcodes hold great promise for applications in information storage and data encryption. However, the spectroscopic encoding of lanthanide‐based photonic barcodes reported thus far is exclusively manipulated by sophisticated external stimuli or spatially resolved lanthanide heterostructures, and still suffers from small coding space and low coding capacity. Herein, a facile approach to design high‐capacity photonic barcodes through manipulating the polarized emission of Eu3+ metal–organic framework is proposed. Thanks to the highly anisotropic crystal structure and low‐symmetry energy level splitting of Eu3+, the large degree of polarization (≈0.96) enables not only color‐tunable emission but also abundant well‐resolved sub‐barcodes. Such polarization‐sensitive emission of the crystals provides a smart encoding strategy to realize polarization‐covert sub‐barcodes, which can be further integrated into a large coding library of photonic barcodes toward high‐capacity data storage and advanced anti‐counterfeiting applications.

Force‐Induced Molecular Isomerization for the Construction of Multicolor Luminescent Segmented Molecular Crystals

AbstractMulticolor luminescent segmented materials have attracted tremendous research interest due to their potential applications as barcoding materials in information security and anti‐counterfeiting. Although much effort has been devoted to the preparation of photonic barcodes based on different light‐emitting materials, the rational design of barcoding materials with well‐controlled emission color and length at desired position remains a challenge. Here, a novel strategy to fabricate multicolor luminescent segmented 1D molecular crystals is reported by manipulating the molecular conformation and intermolecular interactions of the mechanochromic crystals, which are assembled from a rationally designed twisting conjugated molecule. The emission color of these mechanochromic crystals changes from green to orange with the mechanism of synergy effect of force‐induced molecular isomerization from trans to cis state and molecular packing changes from cross to parallel, which is revealed by single crystal X‐ray diffraction. Multicolor luminescent segmented 1D microribbons are fabricated by applying precisely controlled forces by tapping mode atomic force microscope, which shows the encoding capability. These findings provide a new method that allows the controllable fabrication of segmented materials with tunable emission color and length at desired position toward barcoding applications.

Droplet Lasers for Smart Photonic Labels.

Microscopic lasers represent a promising tool for the development of cutting-edge photonic devices thanks to their ability to enhance light–matter interaction at the microscale. In this work, we realize liquid microlasers with tunable emission by exploiting the self-formation of three-dimensional liquid droplets into a polymeric matrix driven by viscoelastic dewetting. We design a flexible device to be used as a smart photonic label which is detachable and reusable on various types of substrates such as paper or fabric. The innovative lasing emission mechanism proposed here is based on whispering gallery mode emission coupled to random lasing, the latter prompted by the inclusion of dielectric compounds into the active gain medium. The wide possibility of modulating the emission wavelength of the microlasers by acting on different parameters, such as the cavity size, type and volume fraction of the dielectrics, and gain medium, offers a multitude of spectroscopic encoding schemes for the realization of photonic barcodes and labels to be employed in anticounterfeiting applications and multiplexed bioassays.

Laterally Engineering Lanthanide‐MOFs Epitaxial Heterostructures for Spatially Resolved Planar 2D Photonic Barcoding

AbstractMetal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) heterostructures with domain‐controlled emissive colors have shown great potential for achieving high‐throughput sensing, anti‐counterfeit and information security. Here, a strategy based on steric‐hindrance effect is proposed to construct lateral lanthanide‐MOFs (Ln‐MOFs) epitaxial heterostructures, where the channel‐directed guest molecules are introduced to rebalance in‐plane and out‐of‐plane growth rates of the Ln‐MOFs microrods and eventually generate lateral MOF epitaxial heterostructures with controllable aspect ratios. A library of lateral Ln‐MOFs heterostructures are acquired through a stepwise epitaxial growth procedure, from which rational modulation of each domain with specific lanthanide doping species allows for definition of photonic barcodes in a two‐dimensional (2D) domain with remarkably enlarged encoding capacity. The results provide molecular‐level insight into the use of modulators in governing crystallite morphology for spatially assembling multifunctional heterostructures.

Laterally Engineering Lanthanide-MOFs Epitaxial Heterostructures for Spatially Resolved Planar 2D Photonic Barcoding.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) heterostructures with domain-controlled emissive colors have shown great potential for achieving high-throughput sensing, anti-counterfeit and information security. Here, a strategy based on steric-hindrance effect is proposed to construct lateral lanthanide-MOFs (Ln-MOFs) epitaxial heterostructures, where the channel-directed guest molecules are introduced to rebalance in-plane and out-of-plane growth rates of the Ln-MOFs microrods and eventually generate lateral MOF epitaxial heterostructures with controllable aspect ratios. A library of lateral Ln-MOFs heterostructures are acquired through a stepwise epitaxial growth procedure, from which rational modulation of each domain with specific lanthanide doping species allows for definition of photonic barcodes in a two-dimensional (2D) domain with remarkably enlarged encoding capacity. The results provide molecular-level insight into the use of modulators in governing crystallite morphology for spatially assembling multifunctional heterostructures.

Multiplexed CRISPR/Cas9 quantifications based on bioinspired photonic barcodes

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR associated nucleases (CRISPR/Cas) platforms have a demonstrated value in nucleic acid detection, while their multiplex screening capability is still challenging. Herein, we present a novel CRISPR/Cas9 platform based on bioinspired photonic crystal (PhC) barcodes for multiplex and sensitive nucleic acid detection. The bioinspired PhC barcodes not only exhibit distinctive structural color as encoding elements, but also possess abundant functional surface groups for probe immobilization with the presence of polydopamine (PDA) coating. The CRISPR/Cas9 system recognizes and cleaves target DNA and with the help of Klenow fragment to produce ssDNA, which was subsequently captured by the PhC barcodes and the detection signal was amplified by hybridization chain reaction (HCR). Based on this platform, we demonstrated that Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) nucleic acids could be detected with a highly sensitive limit of 0.025 pM and be multiplexed assayed with high accuracy and specificity. Thus, we believe that this platform paves an avenue for multiplexed biomarkers quantification in clinical disease diagnostics.

Dual‐Wavelength Responsive Broad Range Multicolor Upconversion Luminescence for High‐Capacity Photonic Barcodes

AbstractRealizing multicolor emissions of upconversion (UC) luminescence materials is of significant importance for information security and anticounterfeiting fields. Herein, a strategy is reported to achieve UC multicolor luminescence through manipulating the electronic transition process under dual‐wavelength excitation. The novel color can be produced via exploiting the synergistic effect of photons under dual‐wavelength excitation to control electron distribution, and can be further modulated by finely adjusting the excitation power. Furthermore, the range of color‐tunable emissions is expanded by adjusting Yb3+ ions concentrations due to the energy back transfer (EBT) process. Inspired by this, the materials with broad‐range UC multicolor emissions can be used to design high‐capacity photonic barcodes for anticounterfeiting applications, which provides a significant step for advanced anticounterfeiting of high level security.

Dynamic photonic barcodes for molecular detection based on cavity-enhanced energy transfer

Optical barcodes have demonstrated a great potential in multiplexed bioassays and cell tracking for their distinctive spectral fingerprints. The vast majority of optical barcodes were designed to identify a specific target by fluorescence emission spectra, without being able to characterize dynamic changes in response to analytes through time. To overcome these limitations, the concept of the bioresponsive dynamic photonic barcode was proposed by exploiting interfacial energy transfer between a microdroplet cavity and binding molecules. Whispering-gallery modes resulting from cavity-enhanced energy transfer were therefore converted into photonic barcodes to identify binding activities, in which more than trillions of distinctive barcodes could be generated by a single droplet. Dynamic spectral barcoding was achieved by a significant improvement in terms of signal-to-noise ratio upon binding to target molecules. Theoretical studies and experiments were conducted to elucidate the effect of different cavity sizes and analyte concentrations. Time-resolved fluorescence lifetime was implemented to investigate the role of radiative and non-radiative energy transfer. Finally, microdroplet photonic barcodes were employed in biodetection to exhibit great potential in fulfilling biomedical applications.

Spatially Responsive Multicolor Lanthanide-MOF Heterostructures for Covert Photonic Barcodes.

Micro/nanoscale photonic barcodes based on multicolor luminescent segmented heterojunctions hold potential for applications in information security. However, such multicolor heterojunctions reported thus far are exclusively based on static luminescent signals, thus restricting their application in advanced confidential information protection. Reported here is a strategy to design responsive photonic barcodes with heterobimetallic (Tb3+ /Eu3+ ) metal-organic framework multicolor heterostructures. The spatial colors could be precisely controlled by thermally manipulating the energy-transfer process between the two lanthanides, thus achieving responsive covert photonic barcodes. Also demonstrated is that spatially resolved responsive barcodes with multi-responsive features could be created in a single heterostructure. These findings offer unique opportunities to purposely design highly integrated responsive microstructures and smart devices toward advanced anti-counterfeiting applications.