The noble metal nanoparticle has
been widely utilized as a plasmonic
unit to enhance biosensors, by leveraging its electric and/or optical
properties. Integrated with the “flexible” feature,
it further enables opportunities in developing healthcare products
in a conformal and adaptive fashion, such as wrist pulse tracers,
body temperature trackers, blood glucose monitors, etc. In this work, we present a holistic review of the recent advance
of flexible plasmonic biosensors for the healthcare sector. The technical
spectrum broadly covers the design and selection of a flexible substrate,
the process to integrate flexible and plasmonic units, the exploration
of different types of flexible plasmonic biosensors to monitor human
temperature, blood glucose, ions, gas, and motion indicators, as well
as their applications for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)
and colorimetric detections. Their fundamental working principles
and structural innovations are scoped and summarized. The challenges
and prospects are articulated regarding the critical importance for
continued progress of flexible plasmonic biosensors to improve living
quality.