Whispering gallery mode optical resonators for biological and chemical detection: current practices, future perspectives, and challenges

Abstract Sensors are important for a wide variety of applications include medical diagnostics and environmental monitoring. Due to their long photon confinement times, whispering gallery mode sensors are among the most sensitive sensors currently in existence. We briefly discuss what are whispering gallery mode sensors, the principles of whispering gallery mode sensing, and the history of the field, beginning with Mie theory. We discuss recent work in the field on using these whispering gallery mode resonators as sensors, focusing particularly on biological and chemical sensing applications. We discuss how sensorgrams are acquired and fundamental measurement limits. In addition, we discuss how to interpret binding curves and extract physical parameters such as binding affinity constants. We discuss the controversy surrounding single-molecule detection and discuss hybrid whispering gallery mode nanoparticle sensors. In addition, we place these sensors in context with others sensing technologies both labeled and label-free. Finally, we discuss what we believe are the most promising applications for these devices, outline remaining challenges, and provide an outlook for the future.