Abstract
Nanostructures are arising as novel biosensing platforms promising to surpass current performance in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, and affordability of standard approaches. However, for several nanosensors, the material and synthesis used make the industrial transfer of such technologies complex. Silicon nanowires (NWs) are compatible with Si-based flat architecture fabrication and arise as a hopeful solution to couple their interesting physical properties and surface-to-volume ratio to an easy commercial transfer. Among all the transduction methods, fluorescent probes and sensors emerge as some of the most used approaches thanks to their easy data interpretation, measure affordability, and real-time in situ analysis. In fluorescent sensors, Si NWs are employed as substrate and coupled with several fluorophores, NWs can be used as quenchers in stem-loop configuration, and have recently been used for direct fluorescent sensing. In this review, an overview on fluorescent sensors based on Si NWs is presented, analyzing the literature of the field and highlighting the advantages and drawbacks for each strategy.
Highlights
Biosensors are each day becoming more and more important, facing the challenge of novel devices to enable selective and high-sensitive monitoring of several diseases with the requirement of an easy, non-invasive, and preferably out-of-hospital analysis [1]
silicon nanowires (Si NWs) guarantee more than 90% of quenching efficiency in the closed stem-loop configuration for DNA
It is possible to observe as increasing PL quenching of the platform for higher C-reactive Protein (CRP) concentrations. In these works [101,103], the authors attested through lifetime measurements that the PL quenching can be ascribed to the introduction of new non-radiative levels by the CRP capture, reducing the fluorescence
Summary
Biosensors are each day becoming more and more important, facing the challenge of novel devices to enable selective and high-sensitive monitoring of several diseases with the requirement of an easy, non-invasive, and preferably out-of-hospital analysis [1]. Calcium ion is an important messenger in cells, and it is related to several cellular activities and fundamental processes in neurons [128,129] In this case, the sensor work as a ratiometric sensor based on the use of two fluorescent species, a ruthenium-based dye with red emission as the reference molecule, and the Fluo-3 with green emission as the light-emitting probe. The realization and use of a single Si NW sensor capable to be finely located for high spatial resolution imaging of dynamical biomolecules activity is extremely interesting These Si NWs-based light-emitting sensors may found a commercial transfer as fluorescent probes thanks to their superior performances, their easy use with the current biological equipment (as the confocal microscopy), and the interest in a Si-based platform.
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