On-chip optical detection of viruses : a review

• Main Authors: Shi, Yuzhi, Li, Zhenyu, Liu, Patricia Yang, Nguyen, Binh Thi Thanh, Wu, Wenshuai, Zhao, Qianbin, Chin, Lip Ket, Yap, Peng Huat, Zhou, Xiaohong, Zhao, Hongwei, Yu, Dan, Tsai, Din Ping, Liu, Ai Qun
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Science; COVID-19; Optofluidics
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/151453
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The current outbreak of the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic worldwide has caused millions of fatalities and imposed a severe impact on our daily lives. Thus, the global healthcare system urgently calls for rapid, affordable, and reliable detection toolkits. Although the gold-standard nucleic acid amplification tests have been widely accepted and utilized, they are time-consuming and labor-intensive, which exceedingly hinder the mass detection in low-income populations, especially in developing countries. Recently, due to the blooming development of photonics, various optical chips have been developed to detect single viruses with the advantages of fast, label-free, affordable, and point of care deployment. Herein, optical approaches especially in three perspectives, e.g., flow-free optical methods, optofluidics, and surface-modification-assisted approaches, are summarized. The future development of on-chip optical-detection methods in the wave of emerging new ideas in nanophotonics is also briefly discussed.