Real-time monitoring of bacterial contaminants and pollutants in food is of paramount importance nowadays, owing to the impressive extension of the food production/supply chain and the consequent increase in foodborne outbreaks worldwide. This represents a serious risk for consumers’ health and accounts for a large fraction of food wastage, especially in the developed countries. Therefore, modern sensors for food quality control should possibly afford low-cost, portability, and easiness of readout to enable widespread diffusion of the technology, thus allowing food quality monitoring from the production/supply chain to the consumers’ table. In these regards, one-dimensional photonic crystals, also known as Distributed Bragg Reflectors (DBRs), can represent simple yet efficient all-optical and label-free colorimetric sensors, given their relatively high color purity, easiness of integration with a large number of stimulus responsive materials, and low-cost fabrication from scalable processes. In this perspective article, we discuss the development of DBRs-based colorimetric sensors for the monitoring of bacterial contaminants and pollutants of interest in the food quality sector. We aim at providing a systematic overview on the main approaches that have been employed to achieve selectivity and sensitivity in DBRs-based sensors, with the view to enable widespread use of this technology at both the industry/supply chain and customers’ level.

中文翻译：

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分布式布拉格反射器，用于比色检测细菌污染物和用于食品质量控制的污染物

由于食品生产/供应链的显着扩展以及随之而来的全球食源性疾病爆发的增加，对食品中细菌污染物和污染物的实时监控如今已变得至关重要。这对消费者的健康构成了严重的风险，并造成了很大一部分食物浪费，尤其是在发达国家。因此，用于食品质量控制的现代传感器应可能具有低成本，便携性和易于读取的特性，以使该技术得以广泛传播，从而可以对从生产/供应链到消费者餐桌的食品质量进行监控。在这些方面，一维光子晶体也称为分布式布拉格反射器（DBR），可以表示简单而有效的全光学和无标签比色传感器，鉴于其相对较高的色纯度，易于与大量刺激响应材料集成以及通过可扩展工艺进行的低成本制造。在这篇观点文章中，我们讨论了基于DBR的比色传感器的开发，该传感器用于监测食品质量领域中的细菌污染物和相关污染物。我们旨在对基于DBR的传感器实现选择性和灵敏度所采用的主要方法进行系统的概述，以期使该技术能够在行业/供应链和客户层面得到广泛使用。我们将讨论基于DBR的比色传感器的开发，该传感器用于监测细菌污染物和食品质量领域中感兴趣的污染物。我们旨在对基于DBR的传感器实现选择性和灵敏度所采用的主要方法进行系统的概述，以期使该技术能够在行业/供应链和客户层面得到广泛使用。我们将讨论基于DBR的比色传感器的开发，该传感器用于监测细菌污染物和食品质量领域中感兴趣的污染物。我们旨在对基于DBR的传感器实现选择性和灵敏度所采用的主要方法进行系统的概述，以期使该技术能够在行业/供应链和客户层面得到广泛使用。