{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,17]],"date-time":"2026-09-17T05:02:37Z","timestamp":1789621357915,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":61,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"18","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,15]],"date-time":"2026-09-15T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789430400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"National Key Laboratory Fund for Aerospace Flight Technology","award":["0301D2024000000040489900"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["0301D2024000000040489900"]}]},{"name":"the Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province, China","award":["2025-MS-015"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2025-MS-015"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Current all-optical chiral sorting approaches are ineffective for nanoscale drug molecules with weak chirality, as their faint optical response cannot maintain the chiral sorting mechanism. To overcome this physical limitation, the theoretical study proposes a core\u2013shell composite chiral sensing microsphere, in which a drug crystal core is encapsulated by a nematic liquid crystal shell, acting as a chirality-amplifying carrier for optofluidic detection. Using a sodium ibuprofen nanocrystal as a representative weakly chiral drug, the optimal core\u2013shell sensing structure was determined to consist of a nematic liquid crystal E7 shell with a radius of 19 \u03bcm and a sodium ibuprofen crystal core with a radius of 9.5 \u03bcm. This optimized configuration amplifies the molecular chirality parameter from 10\u22126 to 6.5 \u00d7 10\u22123 and yields the maximum transverse separation velocity of 1.19 \u03bcm\/s. Hydrodynamic calculations demonstrate that when the optimized composite sensing microsphere accumulates an absolute transverse displacement greater than 19 \u03bcm within a microfluidic channel, the maximum longitudinal flow velocity of the system reaches 2.4 \u03bcm\/s, satisfying the geometric threshold required for continuous sensing and sorting. This study provides a design strategy to advance optofluidic sensing and sorting systems for nanoscale chiral drugs.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s26185852","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,15]],"date-time":"2026-09-15T18:23:53Z","timestamp":1789496633000},"page":"5852","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Optofluidic Sensing and Sorting of Chiral Drugs Based on Core\u2013Shell Composite Microspheres"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"26","author":[{"given":"Hongze","family":"Gao","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Optoelectronic Engineering and Instrumentation Science, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wen","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Optoelectronic Engineering and Instrumentation Science, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Tun","family":"Cao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Optoelectronic Engineering and Instrumentation Science, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,15]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e02345","DOI":"10.1002\/lpor.202502345","article-title":"Revealing Electric-Magnetic Asymmetry of Transverse Spin Angular Momentum using Polarization-Selected Chiral Lateral Forces","volume":"20","author":"Feng","year":"2025","journal-title":"Laser Photonics Rev."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"40","DOI":"10.59566\/IJBS.2012.8040","article-title":"Validated Densitometric TLC-Method for the Simultaneous Analysis of (R)- and (S)-Citalopram and its Related Substances Using Macrocyclic Antibiotic as a Chiral Selector: Application to the Determination of Enantiomeric Purity of Escitalopram","volume":"8","author":"Soliman","year":"2012","journal-title":"Int. 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