Abstract
Nanomaterials have become essential components for the development of biosensors since such nanosized compounds were shown to clearly increase the analytical performance. The improvements are mainly related to an increased surface area, thus providing an enhanced accessibility for the analyte, the compound to be detected, to the receptor unit, the sensing element. Nanomaterials can also add value to biosensor devices due to their intrinsic physical or chemical properties and can even act as transducers for the signal capture. Among the vast amount of examples where nanomaterials demonstrate their superiority to bulk materials, the combination of different nano-objects with different characteristics can create phenomena which contribute to new or improved signal capture setups. These phenomena and their utility in biosensor devices are summarized in a non-exhaustive way where the principles behind these synergetic effects are emphasized.
Highlights
The particularity of biosensors, compared to classic sensors, is that the sensing element, called the receptor unit, is a biological entity or a bioinspired compound which confers an excellent selectivity towards the analyte to be detected
Further non-radiative energy transfer leading to quantum dots (QDs) fluorescence can be achieved using emitting protein labels which eliminate the need of external excitation light source [63]
Even when progress was achieved in the synthesis and isolation of carbon QDs with specific properties, the great progress was achieved in the synthesis and isolation of carbon QDs with specific properties, the controlled synthesis of defined domain distribution and surface functionalities leading to controlled synthesis of defined domain distribution and surface functionalities leading to distinguished distinguished absorption and emission spectra, as it is the case for semiconductor QDs, remains a absorption and emission spectra, as it is the case for semiconductor QDs, remains a challenge [140,141]
Summary
The particularity of biosensors, compared to classic sensors, is that the sensing element, called the receptor unit, is a biological entity or a bioinspired compound which confers an excellent selectivity towards the analyte to be detected. For immunosensing and the detection of DNA, more sophisticated setups are needed since an immune reaction or a hybridization of DNAs does not produce an electrochemical signal For these cases, labeled secondary antibodies or DNA strands have to be involved after the recognition event where these labels will give the electrochemical signal. The principle is based on the change of light-induced electron oscillations (surface plasmons) in the conduction band of metallic coatings (usually gold) when the dielectric constant of its environment changes [16] This is the case, among others, for immune reactions or DNA hybridization where the recognition event changes the oscillation frequency which results in an angle change of the reflected light, its change of intensity, refractive index, or its phase [17,18]. We want to present some selected examples of synergetic effects achievable by combining different nanomaterials, enabling new or original transduction of biorecognition events
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