Molecular fingerprinting technology has evolved from bulky laboratory benchtop instrumentation to field-deployable devices driven by advances in semiconductor and photonic technologies. The ongoing miniaturization of vibrational spectroscopy equipment has revolutionized the food industry by allowing on-site and real-time monitoring of food products and production processes to ensure quality and safety. The development of spectral libraries to fingerprint contaminants has provided unique detection capabilities to ensure consumer’s product safety. Commercialization of handheld and ruggedized instrumentation for field deployment is enabling little or no sample preparation requirement, non-contact and non-destructive capabilities. Testing done as close to the original source would permit detecting risks before an ingredient has been diluted or combined with other ingredients. By producing a characteristic chemical ‘fingerprint’ with unique signature profiles, miniaturized molecular spectroscopy techniques combined with chemometric analysis have positioned as viable ‘green’ alternatives for field applications allowing phenotyping, quality assurance, authentication, and detection of adulteration and contaminants in foods. Contrary to NMR and mass spectrometry (MS) techniques, vibrational spectroscopy provides selectivity and specificity for screening raw materials without requiring costly instrumentation, labor-intensive and complex sample pretreatment, well-trained technicians to operate the instrumentation and are particularly amenable to be implemented for quality control in the field, manufacturing facilities, and grocery stores. In this review, enabling technologies for further miniaturization of vibrational spectroscopy equipment and their applications to the food industry are presented.

分子指纹技术已从笨重的实验室台式仪器发展成为在半导体和光子技术发展的推动下可现场部署的设备。振动光谱设备的不断小型化通过允许对食品和生产过程进行现场和实时监控以确保质量和安全性，彻底改变了食品工业。针对指纹污染物的光谱库的开发提供了独特的检测功能，以确保消费者的产品安全。用于现场部署的手持式和加固型仪器的商业化使对样品制备的要求极少或没有，无接触和无损能力。在接近原始来源的情况下进行测试可以在成分稀释或与其他成分混合之前检测出风险。通过产生具有独特特征谱的特征性化学“指纹”，将微型分子光谱技术与化学计量学分析相结合，已成为现场应用的可行“绿色”替代品，可用于表型鉴定，质量保证，鉴定以及检测食品中的掺假和污染物。与NMR和质谱（MS）技术相反，振动光谱法提供了筛选原料的选择性和特异性，而无需昂贵的仪器，劳动密集型和复杂的样品预处理，受过良好训练的技术人员来操作仪器，尤其适合在现场，制造工厂和杂货店进行质量控制。在这篇综述中，提出了进一步使振动光谱设备小型化的技术及其在食品工业中的应用。