Biomedical Optics Express Feature Issue “Biological Cells as Natural Biophotonic Devices: Fundamental and Applications” hosts a review article by Edoardo De Tommasi (CNR-ISASI) and Anna Chiara De Luca (CNR-IEOS): “Diatom biosilica in plasmonics: applications in sensing, diagnostics and therapeutics”. Diatoms are unicellular microalgae able to synthesize micro- and nano-structured silica shells which, if properly metallized, are able to trigger plasmonic effects due to the interaction between light and conducting electrons. The review article provides a wide, complete overview on the main metallization techniques applied to diatom biosilica and on the principal applications of diatom-based plasmonic devices mainly but not exclusively in the fields of biochemical sensing, diagnostics and therapeutics.
The article is available in open access here:
https://opg.optica.org/boe/fulltext.cfm?uri=boe-13-5-3080&id=472316
