Executive Summary : | Diabetes has become a global health concern, with over 400 million people affected globally. In 2019, over 1.5 million deaths were caused by diabetes, with 48% of these deaths occurring in those under 70 years old. The proportion of adults suffering from diabetes is predicted to increase to 7.7% of the total population by 2030. India is particularly affected, with 77 million people suffering from the disease, making it the second most affected country after China. Type II diabetes, or non-insulin dependence or adult-onset diabetes, is the most common type. There is no cure for this illness, and the only prevention is monitoring blood glucose levels to avoid hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. Blood glucose monitoring technology has seen significant advancements, with various options available today. Currently, patients with diabetes have to monitor their blood glucose multiple times a day to determine meal timing and medication administration. This process is painful, inconvenient, and risky. A new approach to detecting glucose levels in diabetic patients is proposed. The group has shown that a strong light matter interaction can be achieved in natural hyperbolic van der Waals crystals through the formation of phonon polariton (PhP), a quasiparticle with longer lifetimes compared to plasmons. This approach will achieve an unprecedented limit of detection with small sample volumes of salivary glucose, marking the first time in-plane hyperbolic phonon polaritons will be explored in a sensor application. This study has potential impact on fundamental science. |