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Edible microlasers made from food-safe materials can serve as barcodes and biosensors

Edible microlasers
Demonstration of information decoding from edible microlasers embedded within peach compote glass jar. Credit: Abdur Rehman Anwar

If you've ever consumed food made with olive oil, there's a good chance you've unknowingly ingested materials capable of producing lasers. Researchers have recently demonstrated edible microlasers—tiny lasers made entirely from food-safe materials—that can be used for food monitoring, product authentication and tagging. These edible microlasers are composed of droplets of oil or water–glycerol mixtures doped with natural optical gain substances, such as chlorophyll (the green pigment in leaves) or riboflavin (vitamin B2).

Researchers have shown that already contains enough chlorophyll to be used directly as a laser in the form of droplets without the need for additional ingredients. They can be excited using external light, such as a pulsed laser. The research is in the journal Advanced Optical Materials.

Edible microlasers can be realized in different configurations, including whispering gallery modes (where light circulates inside a droplet) and Fabry–Pérot cavities (where light reflects back and forth between two surfaces). Their emission properties can be tuned by varying the cavity size or the surrounding conditions, such as the refractive index of the medium.

Due to their highly sensitive output emission, microlasers can serve both as optical barcodes and sensors. For example, researchers have encoded a date into a peach compote using microlaser barcodes embedded inside the food. The barcode remained optically stable and readable for over a year. In other experiments, edible microlasers have been designed to respond to changes in pH, temperature, sugar concentration, and microbial growth, offering a platform for real-time food freshness sensing.

Edible microlasers
WGM lasing observed from olive oil droplets floating in water under the exposure of blue pulsed laser. Credit: Abdur Rehman Anwar, Maruša Mur, Matjaž Humar

Importantly, these microlasers do not alter the or taste of the food and are suitable for vegetarians. This approach combines photonics and in a novel, biocompatible way that could reduce , detect counterfeits, and improve food quality control.

Beyond the , this edible technology may also find applications in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, agriculture, and other fields where biocompatible, ingestible barcodes and sensors are valuable.

This story is part of , where researchers can report findings from their published research articles. for information about Science X Dialog and how to participate.

More information: Abdur Rehman Anwar et al, Microlasers Made Entirely from Edible Substances, Advanced Optical Materials (2025).

Abdur Rehman Anwar, Dr. Maruša Mur, and Dr. Matjaž Humar are physicists working in the Lab for biophotonics, soft photonics and quantum optics at the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Anwar, a young researcher, holds a master’s degree from Pakistan, where he worked on LEDs. He received the Gold Medal for best academic performance, awarded by the President of Pakistan, and currently focuses on microlasers based barcodes and sensors.

Dr. Maruša Mur is a postdoctoral researcher whose PhD research focused on photonic microdevices and topological defects in liquid crystals. Her current work explores bio-integrated photonics and embedding microdevices in biological systems.

Dr. Matjaž Humar leads the lab and holds a PhD in optical microresonators. A former postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, he pioneered intracellular lasers. He is the recipient of two ERC and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships, with publications in Nature and Nature Photonics.

Citation: Edible microlasers made from food-safe materials can serve as barcodes and biosensors (2025, July 2) retrieved 3 July 2025 from /news/2025-07-edible-microlasers-food-safe-materials.html
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