Photonics on a Budget: Low-Cost Polymer Sensors for a Smarter World

Polymer-based photonic sensors are emerging as cost-effective, scalable alternatives to conventional silicon and glass photonic platforms, offering unique advantages in flexibility, functionality, and manufacturability. This review provides a comprehensive assessment of recent advances in polymer photonic sensing technologies, focusing on material systems, fabrication techniques, device architectures, and application domains. Key polymer materials, including PMMA, SU-8, polyimides, COC, and PDMS, are evaluated for their optical properties, processability, and suitability for integration into sensing platforms. High-throughput fabrication methods such as nanoimprint lithography, soft lithography, roll-to-roll processing, and additive manufacturing are examined for their role in enabling large-area, low-cost device production. Various photonic structures, including planar waveguides, Bragg gratings, photonic crystal slabs, microresonators, and interferometric configurations, are discussed concerning their sensing mechanisms and performance metrics. Practical applications are highlighted in environmental monitoring, biomedical diagnostics, and structural health monitoring. Challenges such as environmental stability, integration with electronic systems, and reproducibility in mass production are critically analyzed. This review also explores future opportunities in hybrid material systems, printable photonics, and wearable sensor arrays. Collectively, these developments position polymer photonic sensors as promising platforms for widespread deployment in smart, connected sensing environments.