Recent advances of surface plasmon resonance sensors based on metal-organic frameworks

The surface Plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing technique combines rapid response, high sensitivity, non-destructive operation, high specificity, real-time on-site detection, and continuous monitoring advantages. These distinctive features enable its broad application in detecting disease biomarkers, viruses, foodborne contaminants, and hazardous gases. To enhance SPR sensing signals, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which emerge as a category of highly porous-organic frameworks, have demonstrated superior performance as SPR sensitive layers due to their features of large specific surface areas, high porosity, regular skeletons, tunable chemical components and functionality, and promising optoelectronic performances. Varieties of MOFs (such as UiO-66, porphyrin-based MOFs, and zeolitic imidazolate frameworks) and MOFs-based composites with improved plasmon-exciton coupling and charge carrier mobility exhibit amplified SPR responses through the integration of diverse effects. This review systematically summarizes the construction principle of MOFs-based SPR sensors and discusses their advancements for the inspection of biomarkers, drug residuals, viruses, and volatile organic gases. Finally, we also analyze the current challenge and provide the perspective about this field, which can inspire readers to a certain extent.