Ultrasensitive multispecies spectroscopic breath analysis for real-time health monitoring and diagnostics

Significance Determining the identity and concentration of the molecules present in breath is a powerful tool to assess the overall health of a person, analogous to blood testing in clinical medicine, but in a faster and less invasive manner. The presence of a particular molecule (or combination of molecules) can indicate the presence of a certain health condition or infection, facilitating a diagnosis. Monitoring the concentration of the molecules of interest over time can help track the development (or recurrence) of a condition, as well as the effectiveness of the administered treatment. To make breath analysis more accessible and widely adopted, we explore a technique to perform breath analysis with high resolution, wide spectral coverage, high specificity, and high sensitivity.