Issue 3, 2025

Biological metasurfaces based on tailored Luria Bertani Agar growth medium formulations for photonic applications

Abstract

Biodegradable alternatives to classic solid-state components are rapidly taking place in front-end photonic systems like metamaterials, meta-surfaces and photonic crystals. From this point of view, numerous solutions have been proposed involving eco-friendly compounds. Among them, the Luria Bertani agar (LBA) growth medium has been recently proposed as a functional option with the remarkable advantage of allowing the growth of fluorescent protein expressing bacteria. Such a possibility promises to lead to development of a new generation of biological and eco-sustainable optical sources based on meta-surfaces. There is, however, still a main drawback to address, related to the highly scattering nature of these compounds. To ensure adequate nutritive elements for cell growth, LBA hosts several compounds like NaCl, yeast extracts and tryptone. The presence of these components leads to very scattering LBA films, thus hindering its performance as an optical polymer. A trade-off arises between nutritive capacity and optical performance. In this paper, we successfully address this trade-off, demonstrating that a reduction of the basic nutrients (net Agar concentration) of LBA largely enhances the optical properties of the film as a photonic polymer without compromising its cell-viability. We considered two new LBA formulations with two- (LB2A) and four-fold (LB4A) reduction of the nutrients and replicated a square-lattice meta-surface used as a benchmark architecture. We demonstrated that both the replica molding performances and the optical properties (absorption, scattering and diffraction efficiency) of LBA formulations increase with decreasing nutrient concentration, without losing their cell-growth capability. To demonstrate this fundamental aspect, we inoculated the most critical case of LB4A with green-fluorescent-protein-expressing E. coli bacteria, verifying both their vitality and good photoluminescence properties. These results overcome one of the main limitations of LBA as a functional biopolymer for optical applications, unlocking its use in a new generation of biological quantum optical frameworks for all-biological weak and strong light–matter interactions.

Graphical abstract: Biological metasurfaces based on tailored Luria Bertani Agar growth medium formulations for photonic applications

Supplementary files

Transparent peer review

To support increased transparency, we offer authors the option to publish the peer review history alongside their article.

View this article’s peer review history

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
04 Jul 2024
Accepted
28 Oct 2024
First published
29 Oct 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Mater. Horiz., 2025,12, 1008-1017

Biological metasurfaces based on tailored Luria Bertani Agar growth medium formulations for photonic applications

F. Leone, O. Favale, M. D. L. Bruno, R. Bartolino, F. Annesi, V. Caligiuri and A. De Luca, Mater. Horiz., 2025, 12, 1008 DOI: 10.1039/D4MH00861H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements