Holographic Sensors in Biotechnology

Abstract As populations expand worldwide, medical care will need to diversify its data collection techniques to be able to provide adequate healthcare to global populations, this can be achieved through point‐of‐care analysis by wearable analytical devices. Holographic sensors are reusable optical biosensors with the capability to continuously monitor variations, generating the prospect of in vivo monitoring of patient homeostasis. Holographic optical sensors have emerged as an opportunity for low cost and real‐time point‐of‐care analysis of biomarkers to be realized. This review aims to summarize the fundamentals and fabrications of holographic sensors; a key focus will be directed to examining the biotechnology applications in a variety of analytical settings. Techniques covered include surface relief gratings, inverse opals, metal nanoparticle and nanoparticle free holographic sensors. This article provides an overview of holographic biosensing in applications such as pH, alcohol, ion, glucose, and drug detection, alongside antibiotic monitoring. Details of developments in fabrication and sensitizing techniques will be examined and how they have improved the applicability of holographic sensors to point‐of‐care analytics. Although holographic sensors have made significant progress in recent years, the current challenges, and requirements for advanced holographic technology to fulfil their future potential applications in biomedical devices will be discussed.