CRISPR‐Gated Material Assembly Converts Photothermal Loss into Thermoelectric Driving Force for Self‐Powered Biosensing

ABSTRACT Implantable biological sensors can conduct continuous in‐body monitoring, but they are confronted with a long‐standing challenge: achieving self‐powered operation and maintaining high molecular specificity in complex biological environments. Although near‐infrared (NIR) light provides an ideal external energy source for its relatively deep tissue penetration and low phototoxicity, traditional near‐infrared‐based photoelectrochemical (PEC) biosensors often suffer from low charge separation efficiency due to photothermal losses. Here, we overturn this paradigm by converting photothermal loss into a productive thermoelectric driving force through a CRISPR‐gated material assembly strategy. In this system, target‐activated CRISPR‐Cas12a acts as a molecular logic gate that programs the spatial assembly of MoSe 2 nanoheaters onto a Bi 2 Te 3 thermoelectric substrate. Under NIR irradiation, localized photothermal heating of MoSe 2 establishes a temperature gradient across Bi 2 Te 3 , generating a Seebeck effect that drives directional charge separation and produces a robust photocurrent without external bias. This synergy between photothermal heating and topological‐insulator‐enhanced thermoelectric conversion enables attomolar detection of HPV‐16 with excellent specificity and clinical agreement with qPCR. This work establishes a molecularly programmed energy‐transduction framework in which CRISPR recognition is coupled to interfacial thermoelectric signal amplification, providing a design principle for future NIR‐addressable self‐powered biosensing systems.