Unlocking the Translational Potential of Nanophotonic Biosensors: Perspectives on Application-Guided Design

Biochemical sensing platforms have become indispensable to critical decision-making across healthcare, security, and industrydelivering essential data that powers AI systems and shaping our modern lifestyles. This growing reliance on biosensors has elevated expectations, creating demand for portable, user-friendly, and cost-efficient platforms with ultrahigh sensitivity and specificity. Nanophotonic biosensors, which harness engineered subwavelength architectures to amplify light-matter interactions, offer transformative solutions through label-free, real-time, multiplexed detection capabilities. Despite compelling laboratory demonstrations, these technologies remain largely unrealized in real-world applications. This perspective examines the critical "valley of death" in technology transfer, where promising innovations stall before commercialization, while drawing strategic insights from surface plasmon resonance biosensors' successful commercialization journey. Highlighting technologies engineered for high-demand applications, we advocate an application-guided design approach to unlock nanophotonic sensors' translational potential. We share our perspectives on how this strategic framework offers a pathway through commercialization bottlenecks, accelerating the transformation from scientific achievement to societal impact.