Nanoparticle Optical Sensor Arrays: Gas Sensing and Biomedical Diagnosis

Chemical sensor arrays provide a simple but powerful means of creating detection specificity through pattern recognition of the responses from an array of highly cross-reactive sensor elements. Optically responsive nanoparticles have emerged as a useful class of chemical sensors and enabled the development of real-time, sensitive, cost-effective and portable microdetectors for targeting biochemical analytes of interest. The unique and fascinating physicochemical properties of nanoparticles play a key role in building promising array-based sensing platforms. This perspective will describe the principles, fabrication, and applications of various nanoparticle-based optical sensor arrays. Choice of nanomaterials, optical signal transduction, array substrate and fabrication, as well as statistical data analyses will be elaborately discussed. As two major areas of applications, the detection of environmentally related volatiles and clinical use for biomedical diagnosis will be discussed in detail. Finally, the remaining challenges and future perspectives within this analytical topic will be highlighted.